The five hundred and sixty-second album: #562 Simply Red - Picturebook
Through its tracks, Picturebook floats between funk and blues, the music gaining and losing energy depending on the mood of the song. It works well, the lyrics of the tracks being well served by it, and there's some real feeling and emotion in the songs that feels like it would have gotten lost in the production in a lot of other cases. Hucknall's voice is quite specific, but it's well suited to these tracks. It might not feel like as much of a powerhouse album, but tracks like Holding Back The Years hit as much as a lot of other singer-songwriters accomplish.