Lest we forget, this isn’t the first time that a new artist has been propelled into the spotlight to massed cries that she’s the new Billie Holiday. It happened to Erykah Badu; it also happened to Macy Gray, who with hindsight seems far closer to the nu-soul Marge Simpson. So how seriously should we take the comparison when it’s lavished on a 26-year-old former indie chick from Leeds?

As Roy Catchphrase Walker says, the clue’s in the question. If Corinne Bailey Rae sounded that much like Billie Holiday, Radios 1 and 2 would be no more inclined to play her current hit Put Your Records On than they would, say, Diamanda Galas’s “challenging” 1990 Aids opus Plague Mass.

What those comparisons are groping to tell us is that Bailey Rae’s is a voice that you believe, no matter what it’s telling you. In record company terms, a voice like that is the holy grail. It’ll make an average song shine, and when the songs are already good, it’ll hoover up awards until there’s nothing left to release from the album.

There are, thankfully, more than enough decent tunes on Bailey Rae’s eponymous debut to convert the hyperbole into something tangible. With the exception of Call Me When You Get This — which threatens at various points to turn into songs by Al Green, Robert Palmer and Marvin Gaye — it’s actually less a soul album than an album of soulful songs. Think instead of the close-microphoned intimacy favoured by female singer-songwriters in the Seventies, and you’ll have a better idea of what to expect.

At times, it’s a similarity that certain arrangements consciously seek to acknowledge. On Trouble Sleeping, the stray trill of a flute and occasional sunbursts of electric piano could have been lifted from a Carole King record; the sepia-tinted ruminations of Butterfly would by no means disgrace a Laura Nyro album.

That said, unabashed classicism is one thing; retro affectation quite another — and it’s a shame that Till it Happens to You sees Bailey Rae succumbing to the current vogue for adding a little vinyl “surface noise” to a song.

No less heinous a crime against pop is that trick sometimes deployed by songwriters when their lyrical quill momentarily empties — assimilate your inability to think of a lyric into the lyric! Hence, of course, the Spandau Ballet joke: “Why do I find it hard to write the next line?”; “Because you’re a blithering idiot, Gary Kemp.”

Clearly then, it shouldn’t work when, on the opening track, Like a Star, Bailey Rae sighs: “Can’t find the words to write this song.”

In fact, not only does it work, it effectively thrusts you into the loved-up iron lung from which Bailey Rae appears to impart every ensuing song.

Indeed, only on a brace of tunes towards the end does the illusion dissipate. With its clumsy old-school “testifying” I’d Like To comes on like a bewildered refugee from Erykah Badu’s outtakes tub. Breathless is dull enough to pass as reasonable on a Beverley Knight CD.

And yet, even at such otherwise unplumbed depths, there’s the voice, always the voice. If, as old hippies and monarchs-in-waiting believe, flowers emit some sort of ultrasonic noise when you pick them, Corinne Bailey Rae does a pretty good approximation of one in blossom.

EMI

FREE CORINNE BAILEY RAE PODCAST

The soul sensation Corinne Bailey Rae joins Ryan Adams, Sparks, Editors and the Feeling as the fifth in our series of free weekly music podcasts. Hear her talk about falling in love, why she finds James Blunt’s voice a challenge and her Leeds mates the Kaiser Chiefs.

Also, listen in for exclusive tracks, including her gorgeous new single Put Your Records On, from her feverishly anticipated new album.

The Times is proud to be the only newspaper to offer free music podcasts. No registration or fee is necessary. If you’re connected to the internet you’re ready to receive our podcasts. Go to www.timesonline.co.uk/podcasts

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