Endlessly

A great continuation of Duffy’s career which started brilliantly

Two years ago Duffy’s debut album Rockferry was released and made the soul-singer one of the most popular persons not only in her native Great Britain but across the Atlantic as well. The Welsh singer who has turned twenty-four years old this year conquered the audience with her rich vocals that was compared to Dusty Springfield’s voice. Duffy herself believes that those comparisons were out of place because each artist is inimitable and unique. As for her music’s stylistics, taking into account the fact that the artist writes most of the songs by herself it includes some soul elements of the last century’s first half and some contemporary arrangements so her works are always stylish, original and yet sound like classics from the past times. This statement is also right for her second record Endlessly which was released this November. This is not only a great continuation of Duffy’s career which started brilliantly, but also the ground for slight experimentation which is sure to be appreciated by all the singer’s fans.

Endlessly: sparkling disco tracks and hypnotizing soul ballads

If the first work mostly featured piano, cellos and pop anthems, the singer offers a pretty cocktail of sparkling disco tracks and hypnotizing soul ballads on Endlessly which takes the listeners back to the last century. Nevertheless, the songs’ lyrics unveil the epoch of their creation as well as the high record quality. The opening track My Boy conquers with a disco-spirited dance beat, a wonderful arrangement and the vocals which are soft and strong at the same time, while Too Hurt To Dance is a slow soul ballad with a splendid orchestration and a fragile vulnerable voice. Duffy is simply melting with love on another disco number Keeping My Baby, a very positive and colorful number, as well as the single Well, Well, Well. The song’s memorable tune and vivid vocals are not its only virtues for the rhythm section refined with mellow tubes is the creation of The Roots itself, which earlier this year has already proved how well it knows soul’s best traditions with the album Wake up! Very beautiful ballads Don't Forsake Me, the title track and Breath Away are the examples of Duffy’s most sensual and emotional singing, and the faultless accompaniment only underlines and strengthens all the emotions expressed in them in all three cases, so it is quite hard to define the most successful track amongst them. As for the disco compositions, the obvious leader here is the splendid song Girl: though it cannot boast such a powerful vocal part as the single it is filled with true emotions and a feminine charm. The album closes with another mid-tempo ballad Hard For The Heart filled with sadness and built around marvelous stings and an acoustic guitar.

A fresh, juicy and very tasty new material

Duffy has decided to get help from the British scene veteran Albert Hammond to write songs for her sophomore effort, who has played the role of a co-writer. The two have forty years of age difference but the singer was feeling like peer for Hammond is an extraordinary and vigorous person, and it is easy to feel his influence on the new record. At the same time he has helped the singer to find a perfect balance between the past and the present: tubes, strings, acoustic guitar – all these instruments never get old and always add a classic sounding charm to any song, and the slightly hoarse voice and the unusual manner of performance make the album different from anything else. It is hardly possible to say that Endlessly has proved to be utterly unpredictable, for the debut album contained all the preconditions of a collection exactly like this, but this is a fresh, juicy and very tasty new material, which demonstrates to a great extent what Duffy can do as a vocalist and a little bit as an actress. On the whole Endlessly is an album for those who values music that can be a nice background for being nostalgic about some love in the past, dreaming about the future or simply enjoying the present moment.