Birdy
Birdy
(14th Floor)
The right cover version strategically placed on the internet can make all the difference. Usually it’s just a foot in the door for a songwriting career, but for 15-year-old Jasmine Van den Bogaerde, who goes under the chirpier name of Birdy, it seems to be a way of life. After attracting millions of YouTube hits for her versions of Bon Iver’s Skinny Love, The xx’s Shelter and Ed Sheeran’s The A Team, she has released a self-titled debut album that also includes covers of Fleet Foxes’ White Winter Hymnal, Phoenix’s 1901, The National’s Terrible Love and others. In fact, there’s only one self-penned original on here, Without A Word, which does reveal a maturity in writing and performance well beyond her years. It could be argued that the sources she picks from are far cooler than the piano-led, middle-of-the-road space her versions subsequently occupy (in her hands, the explosive beauty of that National song becomes an X Factor audition piece), but there’s no doubt she does have a great voice that’s matched by the polished production.
Alan Morrison
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