Album Review: Rumer - Boys Don’t Cry

Rumer has chosen to present a collection of covers on her second album and in a way, by doing so, consolidates her reputation as fine an interpreter of compositions of others as Karen Carpenter, Dionne Warwick and Dusty Springfield were before her. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Boys Don't Cry is that the songs chosen are all by men – and all of them primarily singer/songwriters from the late-'60s and early-'70s, apart from '80s white soul duo Hall & Oates, whose Sara Smile might also be Rumer's subtle nod to her offstage private self.

And she's not just looking at the songs of what might loosely be called the pop balladeers – Jimmy Webb, Paul Williams, Stephen Bishop, Terry Reid and Clifford T Ward. There's a tune from Todd Rundgren (Be Nice To Me) and the rough'n'tumble Ron Wood and the late Ronnie Lane, whose Just For A Moment comes from obscure album Mahoney's Last Stand, which they cut back in 1976 when they were still both in The Faces. There's also a very James Taylor reading of Isaac Hayes' Soulsville, from the soundtrack to Shaft. For the most part, they're also not the most obvious or popular cuts from these songwriters – the most immediately recognisable, for listeners of a certain age, might be the bonus track, Welcome Back, from the American TV show Welcome Back Kotter, which gave the world John Travolta. For Rumer, it's obvious that it's the song, and the quiet emotional core within it, that attracts her, the nugget that a songwriter finds most resonating.