
The pandemic has not seen a great deal of recorded output from Lisa Wright, but when she has surfaced it has always been with the customary class and panache that we have come to expect from her and that is not about to change.
There was her Proclaimers cover of "500 Miles" which managed to extract a gentle folkiness from the tune as opposed to being delivered at breakneck speed like the original.
Her second release saw her revisit her own tour de force of a song "In The End" for which she was joined by the City Academy Songbirds Choir managing to find a new dimension to the song, with the power of a multitude of female voices singing as one was simply magnificent.
As a prelude to some original material to arrive later in the Spring we have something new for 2021 in the shape of a cover of Justin Bieber's "Anyone".
We'll be the first to admit that Justin does not figure to often on our playlist and a quick listen to the original on Spotify seems unlikely to change that, however it did give us the chance to contrast the differences between the two. Lisa has replaced the plinkety soulless keyboard opening of the original with an acoustic guitar intro over which she lays a trademark vocal. The difference that makes is immeasurable to our ears, one acts almost a distraction whereas the other elevates the song accentuating the message. Justin builds to a climax with some over the top production including a sub Phil Collins "In The Air Tonight" drum break, whereas Lisa reaches the same point taking a more subtle route with the percussion and other instrumentation much further back in the mix.
Admittedly it may take a while for Lisa to match up to Justin's 151 million streams but those that do opt for her cover will be richly rewarded with a warmer more heartfelt version.