Mandy Moore: Coverage

The opening 20 seconds of Mandy Moore's all-covers album Coverage should tell most listeners where they stand on the project. The record opens with Moore's version of XTC's "Senses Working Overtime," which the teen pop sensation and producer John Fields have dressed up with synthetic record scratching, background singers, and a funky rhythm track. Fans of the original will either rip the disc out of their players before Moore hits the chorus or–the better choice–applaud the singer's taste and enjoy the chance to hear a new radio-friendly pop song with more than one hook. As for those who haven't heard XTC before, it's hard to say what they'll think; for certain they won't have the fun of wondering whether, when Moore sings the words "football" and "biscuit," she has the same pictures in her head that were in Andy Partridge's. About half of Coverage could have populated the playlist of a conservative college radio station circa 1985 (The Waterboys' "The Whole Of The Moon," Joan Armatrading's "Drop The Pilot," Blondie's "One Way Or Another," Joe Jackson's "Breaking Us In Two"). The remainder could rest comfortably on a hip adult-contemporary station today (Todd Rundgren's "Can We Still Be Friends," Elton John's "Mona Lisas And Mad Hatters," Joni Mitchell's "Help Me," and so on). The middle-of-the-road material and pointlessly mainstream production weigh each other down on exhausted neo-standards like "I Feel The Earth Move" and "Have A Little Faith In Me," and Moore tends to mimic the vocal cadences of the original versions rather than make them her own. But she's got a strong, appealing voice, and Coverage mostly demonstrates how well great songwriting translates. Stubborn purists may resist, but when Moore soars on "The Whole Of The Moon" and "Drop The Pilot," or the wistful coda of "Can We Still Be Friends," the combination of indelible melodies and vibrant modern sound is both undeniably potent and moving in its newness.