My Beauty

Dismissed at the time more for its sleeve, featuring the former Dexys Midnight Runners singer wearing a dress, makeup and women’s underwear, than the music inside, Kevin Rowland’s 1999 solo album has since been rightly reappraised. Having newly emerged from the wilderness of cocaine addiction that had plagued him through the ’90s, Rowland performed a selection of covers of songs that had helped him through his recovery. The mix is varied to say the least — Whitney Houston’s “The Greatest Love Of All,” “Rag Doll,” “Daydream Believer,” “Thunder Road” by Bruce Springsteen and Squeeze’s “Labelled With Love.” It really shouldn’t work on paper, but thanks to the crack team of session musicians behind him and the passion and earnest conviction in the transformative power of music which fired his work in Dexys still burning, he soars.