Susan Wong

Susan Wong
Step Into My Dreams
(Evosound)

Hong Kong-born singer Susan Wong has sold a lot of CDs and SACDs (Super Audio CDs) in Asia to the last group of people still buying serious numbers of physical discs - audiophiles who are horrified by the very idea of MP3s.

However, those listeners are usually too preoccupied with production values to ask much of the music, and although Wong's latest album, Step Into My Dreams, is beautifully recorded, it is a very lightweight, middle-of-the-road pop confection.

Comprising occasionally Latin-tinged, mostly acoustic interpretations of well-known songs from the 1960s and early 70s, plus Beyonce's Halo, there is nothing here that gives any of the original recordings any serious competition.

Wong has a slightly little girlish voice which is pleasant but not exceptional. It is deployed to fair effect on Al Green's Let's Stay Together and captures the adolescent exuberance of I Wanna Hold Your Hand quite well. But too often she sounds dwarfed by the song - Sounds of Silence, Something, So Far Away.

Listeners who like to take their rock with a certain amount of saccharine will probably like this though, and there's nothing wrong with the sound quality.