Minnie Driver - Ask Me To Dance

Rating: 4/5

Review:
A good album of fine covers

I hadn't heard her previous albums but I like Minnie Driver's film work very much, so I took a punt on this. I didn't have high expectations, but it turned out to be rather a good album.

The first thing to say is that Minnie Driver is a good singer with a very nice voice which she knows how to use. She has a slightly husky tone and smooth delivery which is almost jazzy at times. I get several flashes of Maria Muldaur during the album, but Driver is her own woman and delivers this eclectic selection of covers very well. Despite its title, this certainly isn't a dance album; it tends toward the slightly mournful and sultry which works extremely well most of the time. The slow, contemplative version of Stevie Wonder's Masterblaster, for example, is quite brilliant in my view (she wisely leaves out the verse about "Peace has come to Zimbabwe," by the way). I have always hated the song Fly Me To The Moon, and it says a lot for this album that I quite like the version here. Neil Young's Tell Me Why is very good, and others are just as effective.

A good deal of this is due to the excellent arrangements and production, which bring a genuinely fresh take to familiar material. It's beautifully judged and Driver has assembled a fine band who really get what she is trying to do here, so the overall sound is great – fairly laid-back and quite rich while never being overdone.

This isn't an classic album, nor one which will shape music history but it's a very good piece of work which I like a lot. It has significantly increased my respect for Minnie Driver, and I can recommend it.