The Puppini Sisters BETCHA BOTTOM DOLLAR. Universal

Three young ladies meet up at Trinity College of Music and led by a feisty, ambitious Marcella Puppini decide to turn back the musical clock 60 years to form a three-part harmony group called The Puppini Sisters. The group perform for their scholarly friends and with much encouragement the ladies venture out to perform in a few clubs. They then participate in a Trinity showcase and a Universal A&R Classics & Jazz guy (‘go find a do-wap/burlesque/cabaret act because lounge jazz acts are dying on their feet.’) sees them perform for 30 seconds before called a halt to the performance and signing them on the spot. The ladies can’t believe their luck and sign the ‘lucrative’ £1 mill contract (although how much of the money they will actually bank after expenses, touring, recording and marketing costs are deducted is open to question). Initially influenced by the animated film Belleville Rendezvous the ladies and Universal enlist the talents of the Oscar-nominated soundtrack composer/arranger Benoit Charest to oversee the group’s debut album. The press and the BBC are enlisted to give the ladies a bit of ‘positive shove’ which results in both airplay and some very friendly reviews. The PR blurb that accompanies the album tells the whole story and finishes on, “The Puppini Sisters have worked their own vibe and stuck to their guns and the result is a work of pure genius.”

Now Guinness is pure genius, BETCHA BOTTOM DOLLAR is not… I don’t think I have heard a worse record in a year when so much new UK talent has grasped the nettle, and reached new heights of creativity and originality. The album opens with The Andrews Sisters’ ‘Sisters’ which sounds flat, uninteresting and, for a three-part harmony group, monotone. Mr Sandman follows and that shrill, rather annoying sound continues as it does through the whole album. By the third frantically paced track, Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy (From Company B), I’m getting desperate but things get even worse with dreadful covers of I Will Survive, Wuthering Heights, and Heart Of Glass. On the plus side I can imagine that the group could be entertaining live, with a bit of comedy and animation thrown in, but a live cabaret act doesn’t necessarily translate into good studio fodder…

I played the CD several times (I wondered if I was missing something because of the mass of positive reviews) before handing it over to real punters varying in age between 23 and 55. I received not one positive comment. If you like 40’s swing-pop better listen to the real thing…

1/5