The Performance

Forget all you know about Welsh legend Shirley Bassey. Erase GOLDFINGGGAAAAAAA from your mind, banish any thoughts of camp performances to parts unknown and don’t be weighed down by musical snobbery. You see, no matter what way you carve it up, The Performance – produced by David Arnold who put in such an impressive appearance at The Music Show in Dublin at the beginning of October – is a magnificent record. It’s a simple enough idea, really. Take a singer with a voice that could charm the stars out of the skies and provide her with songs written by such hip young-ish things as Rufus Wainwright, Tom Baxter, Gary Barlow and the Manic Street Preachers to name but four. In Arnold’s super-subtle production hands, the results are breathtaking. The Barlow-penned ‘This Time’ in particular is a spectacular tour de force of powerful vocals and raw emotion, but the misty-eyed ‘The Girl From Tiger Bay’ and album opener ‘Almost There’ give it a run for its money. What a performance! I guess there really ain’t nothing like a dame after all.