Hazel O'Connor - Cover Plus

Digitally remastered and expanded edition. Recording for a second time with the world-renowned producer Tony Visconti, who had also produced her career defining Breaking Glass soundtrack album a year earlier, Hazel O'Connor's 1981 album Cover Plus was an assured development of both her songwriting and her outsider artistry. Released in September 1981, Cover Plus enjoyed a seven week run in the UK Album chart peaking at #32. The album combines selected cover versions with her own heartfelt, often autobiographical original songs; together they deliver a powerful personal manifesto and a singular artistic statement of intent. Cover Plus was a solid assemblage of the then dominant post-punk and new wave aesthetics, a crossover style that Hazel was very much at the forefront of. Her legions of fans, at this time, were drawn from across a wide spectrum including punks, goths and futurists. The album contains three powerful cover versions; the Stranglers' 'Hanging Around', a powerful story-telling song that Hazel imbues with her own invigorating nuances, an inspired and surprising gender switch re-reading of Jim Webb's 'Do What You Gotta Do' and a faithful rendering of Lou Reed's 'Men Of Good Fortune'. This expanded and celebratory reissue comes with a 20-page illustrated lyric booklet including a new and exclusive introduction written by Hazel herself.