Life failed to deliver on the glories of
Stars largely because the album lacked the strong original songwriting of its predecessor. Similarly,
Blue, the follow-up to
Life, is weak on original material. However,
Mick Hucknall makes up for the deficits by assembling a good collection of outside material, ranging from
Gregory Isaacs' "Night Nurse" to
Neil Young's "Mellow My Mind." Initially,
Blue was going to be a covers album, and judging by these numbers -- along with
Dennis Brown's "Ghetto Girl" and one of the two versions of
the Hollies' "The Air That I Breathe," not the superfluous chart-grabbing
Stevie J. production that replicates all the bad parts of
Puff Daddy -- it would have been a great, sultry listen. Instead, he's followed through on an album that accentuates his weaknesses as a writer. Granted, he can oversing on occasion, but if
Blue does anything, it proves that his voice is his greatest talent and that he should dedicate himself to material that serves it well.