Weird. No, very weird.
Seemingly shoved out into the record stores with no publicity, promotion, or either the slighest inkling to anyone that this was going to happen, this is probably the best surprise of the year.
What it is is Sandie Shaw's 1960s (I assume original) recordings of 60s British pop standards ("Long Live Love", "Those Were The Days", "Puppet On A String", the peerless "There Is Always Something Left To Remind Me") recorded in Italian.
There always seems to be something different about pop, and especially 60s pop, recorded in Italian, namely insofar as it was a genre at the time completely obsessed with America (Adriano Celentano to thread), songs full of "yeah yeah yeah fare la whiskey soda con me" and the like. Here though, with the singer being English, and recording English standards, it just becomes a lot more... sensible. Kind of like an extra virgin press of Italian pop, with the idiocy skimmed off at the top, and the general loveliness that was underneath it brought to the top.
It's imperative that this sort of stuff is taken away from pseudo-cocktail lounge irony anyway (say no to Andy Williams and yes to Dean Martin).
Of course, being Anglo-Italian myself, it's always irked that there's never been an I-Tie equivalent of the bhangra underground in Britain. And... well, there never will be, will there?
But, yeah. This is a truly great album, Sandie's voice seems as innocent as Nobbie's dancing, and that's all I really want from my music.
― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Wednesday, 17 September 2003 20:11 (twenty-two years ago)
Although there's nothing stating obviously, it sounds like they are original 60s recordings, unremastered (thankfully). Some of them are highlighted specifically as being from late 60s San Remo festivals, so I can only assume it is 1960s recordings rereleased for the 2K3.
― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Wednesday, 17 September 2003 20:36 (twenty-two years ago)