Young artists who win talent shows; we have seen them come and go. The English Jasmine Van Den Bogaerde won a well-known British competition in 2008 at the age of twelve. She is now fifteen years old and she releases her debut album under the name Birdy. Of course it contains the single Skinny Love, which reached third place in the Netherlands. In doing so, she surpasses the original by Bon Iver,
… which was praised by Dutch critics, but sold much less well. That is also a well-known consequence of singing competitions. Who does not remember our own Lisa Lois who sang Leonard Cohen's song Hallelujah to the highest echelons of the Dutch charts in 2009? Often these kind of covers are performed with great grandeur just to prove how well the vocalist can sing. Sacrilege is often the unwanted byproduct. Skinny Love and the many other covers on this CD are not only sung with passion, but also contain striking production choices. Birdy makes the compositions her own and it therefore seems as if she herself is the writer of all this beauty. That way she proves not to be just another singer. (JE)more