Rockferry | 
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| Artist: Duffy
Label: Polydor Group
Category: Music
List Price: £16.99
Buy New: £7.29
You Save: £9.70 (57%)
New (5) Used (12) Collectible (2) from £6.48
Rating:  154 reviews
Sales Rank: 20
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Running Time: 38 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.3 x 4.9 x 0.4
UPC: 602517564237
EAN: 0602517564237
ASIN: B0012OVF2U
Release Date: March 3, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: Dispatched within 2 working days. Please allow 4 to 5 working days after dispatch for delivery within the UK
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| Tracks:
| • | Rockferry | | • | Warwick Avenue | | • | Serious | | • | Stepping Stone | | • | Syrup & Honey | | • | Hanging On Too Long | | • | Mercy | | • | Delayed Devotion | | • | I'm Scared | | • | Distant Dreamer |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.co.uk Review
Rockferry, the Welsh singer's lovingly constructed debut album, has already succeeded beyond expectations, and although Duffy may not quite be the ingenue portrayed by a clever press campaign (she nearly won a local television talent show a few years back while a single credited to Aimee Duffy is still available on iTunes) she is surely the most appealing of the current flood of young soul sirens. The astonishing title track, co-written by Bernard Butler, sounded like a lost transmission that had taken decades to get through as soon as it hit radio last year. But the gently rolling soul ballad "Stepping Stone", that strapping, inescapable monster hit "Mercy", the ice cool "Serious" (the one time she really does channel the spirit of Dusty Springfield) and the wistful, elegant "Warwick Avenue" are similarly effective. Suggestions by some that Rockferry is little more than sixties pastiche are churlish. Butler's previous work with David McAlmont (featured here as a backing singer) showed his skill at writing and arranging the dramatic, while her other collaborators such as Steve Booker and the team of Jimmy Hogarth and Eg White are hardly lightweights. But despite some wonderful orchestral settings, it's Duffy's terrific voice that makes this so satisfying, even overpowering Butler's exquisitely underplayed guitar work on "Rockferry" itself. Growling the blues on "Syrup & Honey" or belting it out over his lovingly arranged wall of sound on "Distant Dreamer", she sets the tone throughout, several of her songs dealing with escape, both physical and romantic. The sound of someone singing herself to stardom, Rockferry is at times genuinely amazing. Steve Jelbert
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| Customer Reviews: Read 149 more reviews...
 The most overrated album of the year... December 2, 2008
moldyolddough (London)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Much has been made of this album and the singles lifted from it, particularly the now grating 'Mercy' (surely a candidate for most annoying pop single of the year). Dont get me wrong I quite liked this when I heard it for the very first time but after a being force fed it by the radio several times I suddenly realised how weak it was. Its trying too hard to be something it is not ie a classic 60's pop song, its simply a pale approximation.
How she has been compared to the legendary Dusty Springfield is one of lifes great mysteries it must surely be simply a visual thing. Otherwise its like comparing cheap wool with silk. Will she be remembered in 30 years time? I doubt it.
If you like weak retro songs with little depth or substance sung by a pretty Lulu soundalike then this id definitely for you. But if you prefer something with a little more quality stick with Amy Winehouse or seek out the many hundreds of 60's female artists that sound better than this.
 Vibrato anybody? November 26, 2008
J. Macdonald (York, UK)
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
I don't think she's got a good voice at all, she squawks lazily like a doped up duck. Why doesn't she just try singing instead of warbling?
 Simply stunning November 1, 2008
Steve Mitchener (Surrey, England)
I bought this album as a chance puchase based upon a magazine article that I had read about her. I was unaware of the hype and as they don't play very many of her songs on Classic FM and Radio 4, was also unaware of her music!! The melodies are soulful and her voice mature beyond her years. I just love this album: sad but uplifting - how's that for an oxymoron. Yes it took me back to my childhood in the 60s. I would love for her to cover "Ferry 'cross the Mersey". Comparisons to other artists such as Dusty Springfield are understandable but unfair. To me she sounds like ... well Duffy
Not exactly duff but not great either October 18, 2008
Lou Knee (England)
3 out of 7 found this review helpful
The girl is a talent, proudly celtic, and I wouldn't kick her out of bed, as they say, but hmm, sorry, the material, for me is just too unoriginal sounding. She seems to fancy herself as a Dusty revivalist but it's just all too obvious for me. She's got the voice and the looks, but I can't help thinking, after hearing this album that she's also got the style manager and the music manager. I think the woman is every bit as produced as her music, and boy, isn't her music produced! I'd like to see her throw off the shackles of her 'owners' and find her own style and her own sound and forget the Dusty thing now. Find your own voice, Duffy, and I'll listen to you again. At the moment, your'e too much of a package for me.
And on the Dusty thing, which has obviously got a lot of focus since Duffy's emergence, I really don't see a great deal of similarity in the two voices. Dusty's was incredibly warm and rich, a dark chocolate or coffee voice with a drop of Irish whiskey, but Duffy's is much more a Bicardi and coke voice, it has power but is a little sharp, it does not have the depth at all that her heroine's had. To me, it sounds far more like the voice of Lulu. When she realises this I just hope she doesn't dye her barnet red and start laughing a lot. Be yourself luv (and I can't see why you wouldn't want to be).
 That hideous vibrato..... October 15, 2008
Mr. Thomas Thatcher (Salisbury, UK)
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
Duffy seems to be a likeable young lady and can sing in tune - but, in truth, her voice is extremely thin and harsh, and somebody has told her that it is OK to end every, and I mean every, line with a slow-motion vibrato. Duffy, it's just horrible, and the recent live apperance as a Jools Holland special was just unlistenable for that very reason. Why y y y y y do do do do do you hoo hoo hoo hoo doo doo doo doo i i i i i t?
Rockferry is by far the best track: the hit Mercy is pretty bland. The backing is really odd - the instruments are fairly distant and the girl is deliberately forward in the mix, which sounds like a cross between old Merseybeat and Tamla Motown circa 1968. Nothing wrong with that, it's just odd.
One reviewer wrote that it is the best record they have heard in about 30 years: well, I suggest that if it's female singers you want, try anything by Judie Tzuke with her amazing harmonies (Welcome to the Cruise, Sports Car, The Cat is Out Live DVD), Phamtasmagoria and Air Cut by Curved Air with Sonja Kristina, anything by Kiki Dee, anything by Dusty, anything by Judy Henske, anything by Paula Cole and so on (see my reviews on Amazon, who stock all this great stuff). I'm really sorry, but Miss Duffy is just not in that league by a very long way. I suppose she is a relief from the awful antics and monotone of Amy Winehouse (Ruth Archer - nooo, nooo, nooo), who truly is unbearable, but that does not make her great, just a relief.
I am sure that we all wish her luck, but the voice needs a really good coach and that numbing vibrato needs to be completely eliminated - it serves only to highlight the voice's thin sound.
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