Stay

Personnel: Dave Bloor (percussion programming).
Audio Mixers: Johnny Wow; Pete Craigie.
Recording information: Home; Metropolis.
Photographer: Hamish Brown.
As the sole proprietor of the thriving smooth-soul brand Simply Red, the British singer Mick Hucknall could be forgiven for resting on his laurels in his third decade as a consistently successful presence on the U.S. and U.K. charts. But the umpteenth release since his early-1980s punk-rock beginnings with the Frantic Elevators finds the flame-haired soul stirrer helming yet another set of perfectly chosen, sophisticated R&B, leavened with his affectionate cover of the Faces bassist and songwriter Ronnie Lane's "Debris," and the smoking urban blues of "Good Times Have Done Me Wrong." Demonstrating Hucknall's elder-statesman maturity, the warm and cozy "The World and You Tonight" is the singer formerly known as Simply Randy's hymn to suburban respectability, while the pop-R&B of the title track displays his innate talent for blending those two genres in an irresistibly commercial mix.