Album Review: Covers - Conor Maynard

Now Conor Maynard, though still quite young, has been producing great music for years; and he's also been known to bust out a great cover. Well he's decided to give us a whole album of covers featuring very new songs, and the result is pretty damn impressive.

Conor really has released some great music, "Turn Around" and "Animal" being my favourites. Having heard some of his covers before, loved his version of Nicki Minaj's, "Starships", I was very keen to hear this album. I was not let down. While the album may not be perfect, it has an amazing energy, some great covers and Conor's truly beautiful voice.

The album works best when Conor changes up the songs, dance songs turned into ballads, or ballads slowed down even further. Songs like, "Hello" and "Love Yourself" are a little too close to the originals to really succeed, but it's when he belts out Drake's two massive hits, "Hotline Bling" and "One Dance" that we see the beauty in the album. "Hotline Bling" is such a clever cover and Conor's voice is so impassioned. The anger is taken away from the original to make it less bitter and more heartbreaking. As for "One Dance", making it a duet is an inspired choice. There's a nice laidback groove to the track and the drop after the first chorus is great.

Other winning tracks include the stunning cover of "Pillowtalk", where the piano is beautiful and the vocals are exceptional. "Don't Let Me Down" goes from great dance track to a perfect ballad with a lot of passion and "Never Forget You" is another dance track that is great as a ballad.

While "Crash" and "Stitches" may sound quite similar to the originals, there's enough new things in both to make them truly fascinating. "Crash" has been stripped back further and the choice to not go falsetto works wonderfully. And on "Stitches", he makes the brilliant song his own.

He's also thrown in one new song, the beautiful, "This Is My Version". It's a great song that has some beautiful vocals and some really lovely lyrics. This is the best track on the album, so powerful.

Conor's voice is getting stronger and he really does have some great pop sensibilities. This is a great album of covers, now for some more great originals please!!