Album: Rod Stewart

It Had To Be You: The Great American Songbook (J Records)

Having struck out commercially with both 1998's covers collection When We Were The Young Boys and last year's nu-R&B makeover album Human, this anthology of standards might be considered a last desperate attempt to secure Rod Stewart a meaningful profile in today's rapidly-changing pop marketplace. And to a certain extent it's succeeded, thanks in part to the experience of the producers Phil Ramone and Richard Perry, and the arrangers Don Sebesky and Philippe Saisse, not to mention the revitalising midas touch of J Records boss Clive Davis: in America, it sold more than 100,000 copies in its first week, gaining a Top 5 chart entry, Stewart's highest in some while. It shouldn't come as too much of a surprise, though; Rod's nearer 60 than 50 now, the right age to tackle such venerable classics, and he's clearly given plenty of consideration to the phrasing and delivery of songs such as "They Can't Take That Away From Me" and "It Had To Be You". It certainly shows a clean pair of heels to Robbie Williams' similar exercise, demonstrating that doing standards isn't just a matter of wanting to emulate Frank Sinatra or Tony Bennett – at the side of whom one could only come off second-best – but of having developed a voice with a singular enough character of its own to breathe new life into the material. Rod's singing here has a pleasing, smoky quality and a sly worldliness that animates these songs in his own distinctive manner, whereas Robbie Williams' efforts just sounded like a bumptious lad playing dress-up in grandad's old demob suit. Surprisingly agreeable.