| Product Summary | | Label: FONTANA | | UPC: 00602517629769 | | Release Date: 5/13/2008 | | Buy.com Sku: 207942077 | | Item#: M454MK | | Buy.com Sales Rank: 1605 | Format:  CD |
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(P) 2008 Polydor Ltd. (UK) Under Exclusive License in the United States to The Island Def Jam Music Group
(C) 2008 Polydor Ltd. (UK) Under Exclusive License in the United States to The Island Def Jam Music Group
| How long does it take to download a song? |  | Broadband: under 1 minute | | 56 kbps modem: 15-20 minutes |
| | The most hotly anticipated album release of this New Year comes not from someone rammed into the collective consciousness by their media ubiquity. Duffy is an unknown quantity at this point, having performed but a small number of gigs, mostly in support of The Magic Numbers, and having only just begun to be seen on TV, most notably with recent appearances on BBC1's Later with Jools Holland. Yet her soulful voice has already beguiled many of the nation's musical tastemakers and news of its beauty and of the strength of her songs is spreading by word of mouth even as you read these words. BBC Radio One's Jo Whiley chose Duffy's title track and album taster "Rockferry" as her Single of the Week in late November, further adding to the momentum. Now, as the comparisons fly (Dusty Springfield has emerged as the favourite), it's time to discover her for yourself.
"...Duffy's delivery is as pungent as it is unaffected, and the songs, which the singer co-wrote, follow suit." Boston Globe
"Once the Dusty Springfield-flecked closer, "Distant Dreamer," comes round, you'll be wishin' and hopin' for more." Entertainment Weekly
"...[Duffy] boasts a cool power that...stays sweet, soulful and satisfying." Los Angeles Times
"For a debut album it's remarkably consistent and confident, and promises great things to come for the future." MusicOMH.com
"Duffy is a major talent, and Rockferry is little short of outstanding." Sputnikmusic
| | Album Notes and Credits |
Notes & Personnel Info | | Personnel: Duffy (vocals). | | Recording information: West Heath Studios. | | On her 2008 debut, ROCKFERRY, Welsh pop/soul singer Duffy (born Aimee Ann Duffy) presents a charming, retro-leaning set of songs that bring to mind a 21st century Dusty Springfield. Mentored by ex-Suede guitarist Bernard Butler, who produced much of the album and contributes instrumentation on most tracks, Duffy wisely allows her warm, cat-like voice to get comfortable in a variety of settings, from the twangy, Lee Hazlewood-like title track to the dreamy "Warwick Avenue," and then the lively, Motown-tinged "Mercy." Garnering some expected comparisons to Amy Winehouse, Duffy carefully avoids that performer's brand of over-the-top drama, preferring to travel down a quieter and undeniably beautiful back road. |
Producer: Bernard Butler |
Engineer: Jimmy Hogarth; Sebastian Lewsley; Bernard Butler |
| | Technical Info | | Release Date : 05/13/2008 | | Original Release Date : 2008 | | Catalog ID : B0010822-02 | | Label : Mercury | | Number of Discs : 1 | | Studio/Live : Studio | | Mono/Stereo : Stereo | | SPAR Code : n/a | | UPC : 00602517629769 |
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| | Professional Reviews | | Rolling Stone (p.66)
- 4 stars out of 5 -- "With assistance from former Suede guitarist Bernard Butler, who doodles Beatlesesque solos and provides evocative retro production, Duffy makes a case for herself as Amy Winehouse's better-behaved sister."Entertainment Weekly (p.121)
- "[W]hen Duffy slows the tempo for 'Rockferry' and 'Hanging On Too Long,' her voice stretches to spectacular heights." -- Grade: A- Uncut (p.84)
- 3 stars out of 5 -- "The title track is a great calling card, where she starts low and husky before suddenly leaping a whole octave to belt out the second chorus." Q (Magazine)
(p.100)
- 4 stars out of 5 -- "Kicking off with the terrific, yearning title track, it' an album that openly borrows from the past, chiming perfectly with the modish demand for retro-soul." Mojo (Publisher)
(p.102)
- 3 stars out of 5 -- "[H]er daydreaming does produce some great stuff....Notable are 'Warwick Avenue' and 'Stepping Stone'; both are head-against-the-bus-window-tracing-the-raindrops melancholia..." Observer Music Monthly 10 of 10
Say hello to Duffy, the 23-year-old singer born Aimee-Ann Duffy who is, as countless pundits have declared, the Sound of 2008, the New Amy Winehouse, or simply the Welsh Adele...Rockferry is a fantastic album of burning blue soul. In particular, "Mercy'" is a big, booming, finger-wagging sashay worthy of the Supremes. "Syrup and Honey", with its monochrome echoes of "I Can't Help Falling in Love With You", is a ballad you can imagine Elvis singing. "Hanging on Too Long" is a melodramatic belter easily the equal of anything on Back to Black...The magical aura is reinforced by bafflement: how did this shy and fluttery woman-girl, from a remote, Welsh-speaking part of the country, arrive so fully formed, channelling the sounds of far-off Memphis and decades-gone Detroit? Well, it's not quite been a natural-born breeze: Duffy has been working on Rockferry for almost four years. She's co-written with producer Bernard Butler (Sixties-obsessed ex-Suede guitarist), Jimmy Hogarth (a KT Tunstall collaborator), Eg White (Ivor Novello-winning scribe for Will Young) and Steve Booker (who's written for everyone from Natalie Imbruglia to Marti Pellow; Lindsay Lohan to the Bratz dolls)...The closing track, "Distant Dreamer", is an epic, orchestral stab of longing. A young Welsh woman channelling the Walker Brothers? Now that's clever.
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| | Bio | | | Duffy Duffy was born and spent her childhood years in the north Wales coastal community of Nefyn, a place too remote to be driven by style wars or opposing music factions (the nearest record counter was a bus ride away and only stocked the Top 40). The upbringing she describes is one in which everyone had to rub along together, making do and mending, accepting each other and their tastes without prejudice. Having no CD collection of her own, her first real musical memory is of walking into the kitchen unannounced to find her mother and stepfather dancing to Rod Stewart. The first steps she took towards defining her own personal identity came when she borrowed one of her dad's VHS tapes of the '60s TV show Ready, Steady, Go!. "It had The Beatles, the Stones, the Walker Brothers, Sandie Shaw and Millie singing "My Boy Lollipop". So sexy and exciting! I played it again and again until finally it disintegrated." Says former Suede guitarist and record producer Bernard Butler of this artlessness, "Duffy managed to grow up without any concept of what was cool or current, what she should or shouldn't like, how to behave or even how to sing. For her, coming to London at all was the stuff of fairytales." "And to come here to write songs with some random bloke who'd been recommended to her, me? It meant taking two buses and then two trains and took all day. Then she'd do the same in reverse to get home, playing the music she'd just made to old ladies she encountered on the journey. It's hard for cynical music industry types to get their heads around just how far removed she was from our world, geographically and in every other way. But what you've got as a result is someone who acts and sings completely and unselfconsciously from the heart. That's a rare and magical thing."
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