Boys Don’t Cry

Rumer made her major debut in 2010 with Seasons of My Soul. Her singing seems to focus directly on the listener’s ear, cleanly resonant and expressive, and it won recognition almost immediately. Although she belongs to a much later generation than the classic pop singers she recalls, her voice suggests Karen Carpenter while exploring the deeper possibilities of pop singing with remarkable purity. Burt Bacharach and Jools Holland were among those who recognised her gift.

Her second album revisits lesser-known songs by singer-songwriters of the 1970s. A writer and performer herself, she works here in close sympathy with other composers, arriving at an especially satisfying place as a pop vocalist. Jimmy Webb’s ‘P.F. Sloan’, Todd Rundgren’s ‘Be Nice to Me’ and Isaac Hayes’s ‘Soulsville’ form part of a selection that also reaches towards Hall & Oates and Townes Van Zandt.

The choices are personal, but the performances create something broader than a private list of favourites. An exceptionally graceful form of seventies-style singing comes into being, shaped by Rumer’s own distinct sensibility.