About the only thing bigger than Simply Red's collection of hits over the past 20 years is singer Mick Hucknall's ego.

The flame-haired Mancunian always has flaunted his - admittedly considerable - vocal abilities, and this time around even likened himself to Frank Sinatra who he says provided the inspiration for this set of mostly old songs reconstituted in a jazz setting.

At age 45, Hucknall says his voiced has matured and now has deeper bass so it was his 'duty' to re-record his classic cuts, as Ol' Blue Eyes did after he switched labels from Capitol to Reprise in the early 1960s.

But the real reason for Simplified may lie in the fact that Simply Red are re-doing their entire back catalogue of 80 tracks to overcome copyright issues after a split from Warner, which owns the original versions. Simplified has apparently been released on Hucknall's own label to ensure he receives the lion's share of all royalties.

After all, Simply Red is essentially Hucknall. The entire backing band has changed since their debut Picture Book in 1985, most having left by the time the fourth and highly successful album Stars came out in 1991.

Several hits from that era are here in a new form, such as Something Got Me Started, Holding Back the Years, Fairground and For Your Babies, and there are four new songs, including the Cuban-influenced Perfect Love and the more typical A Song For You.

And while giving full play to Hucknall's vocal strengths, this collection falls between a greatest hits collection and an unplugged or live album. But the stripped-down nature of the treatments does work as a good reintroduction to the band.

His fans will love it, but many will lament the absence of the group's breakout hit, the soulful cover of the Valentine Brothers' Money's Too Tight to Mention, and Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes' If You Don't Know Me By Now.

They needn't worry, Hucknall has to save some of the goodies for the next 'reworking'.