The 'Queen of Hip Hop Soul' meets the veteran Irish stadium rockers? Yep. The latest single from Mary J Blige's 2005 album The Breakthrough is a new collaborative version of the classic 1992 U2 song. An anthem to universal brotherhood and sisterhood, the song's simple, uplifting message "One love, one blood, one life, you got to do what you should" should be well suited to soul, but this single lacks the passion of the original.
This is not a duet as, after Bono sings the opening verse, it's all MJB with Bono reduced to backing vocals in the choruses, a bit like the way male dancers just used to hold the ballerinas while they pirouetted. The rest of the band are also very much in the supporting cast with MJB in the starring role, her elastic vocals soaring effortlessly.
This regrettable recent trend of artists re-recording well-known songs with the original artists means they neither match the impact of the original nor are they fully reinvented like the best covers. The truth is that this is a fairly innocuous, even agreeable, record which is obviously aimed at the R&B rather than the rock market. Sure to be a big hit.
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