Snapshots

Album Review

With some of her biggest hits reworking tracks by the Supremes ("You Keep Me Hanging On"), Yvonne Elliman ("If I Can't Have You"), and Brenda Lee ("Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree"), it's surprising that 30 years into her career, Snapshots is the first time '80s pop idol Kim Wilde has succumbed to the idea of the covers album. Admirably avoiding the usual ubiquitous pop standards many might have expected, her 12th studio effort instead features a surprisingly eclectic and somewhat random 13 tunes spanning all the way from 1963 (Dionne Warwick's "Anyone Who Had a Heart") to 2007 (Sugababes' chart-topper "About You Now"). But while the original material might not be karaoke fare, their new but dated productions do unfortunately evoke the kind of singalongs you'd find at drunken hen and stag parties. Suede's Brit-pop favorite "Beautiful Ones," the Buzzcocks' signature hit "Ever Fallen in Love" and David Bowie's Hunk Dory album track "Kooks" are so similar, but undeniably inferior, as to be rendered pointless, while the classic bassline from the Cure's "In Between Days" is replaced by cheap and tinny synths; the sophisticated Motown of Diana Ross' "Remember Me" is turned into a disposable slice of trashy Hi-NRG disco, and the gorgeous acoustic melodies of one-hit wonder Tasmin Archer's "Sleeping Satellite" are swamped with unnecessarily over-Auto-Tuned vocals. Thankfully, the album sometimes manages to complement the existing tracks rather than destroy them, such as the shimmering electro-pop interpretation of Mike Oldfield's "To France," the chiming, U2-esque cover of Erasure's "A Little Respect," and a suitably epic synth pop reimagining of Black's melancholic Top Ten single, "Wonderful Life." But on the whole, Snapshots feels like a rushed quick-buck affair, and while it's an intriguing choice of songs, Wilde disappointingly fails to provide enough of her usual pop charm to do justice to them. ~ Jon O'Brien, Rovi