DURAN Duran did it (badly), Siouxsie and The Banshees did it (well), and UB40 keep doing it (why?). Now Hull's The Beautiful South fall back on cover versions for their 11th album.

The trademark boy-meets-girl vocal interplay is business as usual; the song choices are unusual (ELO, Rufus Wainwright, The Heppelbaums, Lush). The idiosyncratic, smoky arrangements can be inspired (corny Grease duet You're The One That I Want and S Club 7's Don't Stop Moving transformed into melancholic, sinister ballads), or perverse (a swishing samba through Blue Oyster Cult's Don't Fear The Reaper; a rockabilly romp all over The Ramones' punk blast Blitzkrieg Bop).

Where The Beautiful South are rock'n'droll, still perky but pesky in their wish to "ruin songs we liked and turn songs we didn't like into masterpieces", Irish singer-songwriter David Kitt follows Kathryn Williams, Neal Casal and kd lang in making a muted, contemplative covers album. Again the Kitt-bag contents are unexpected (Ivor Cutler, Money Mark, REM's Don't Go Down To Rockville, Toots and the Maytals' Pressure Drop), but he tends to the earnest and sleepy. Only his haunting twist on Thin Lizzy's Dancing In The Moonlight and country stroll across Sonic Youth's Teenage Riot get under the pleasant surface. Unlike The Beautiful South, humour is left to his sleeve-note apology for All Night Long - the one original here - not being the Lionel Richie love marathon.

Updated: 11:26 Thursday, November 18, 2004