Mercy

This sounds like something from back in the soul days. The only part that I don't like is the middle where she's speaking really fast over her own voice, but otherwise it's good. If you like a soulful sound and catchy tunes, then this song is for you. Also, remember to preview the song before you buy.

It wasn't my type of music. The rhythm was completely different, and wasn't what I was expecting. I wasn't impressed.

There honestly has not really a lot of great music that has came out this past year, which is very sad. It is just surprising that artists from the U.K. have really shown their stuff even better than American acts. That has shown well from newcomers Estelle, Leona Lewis, and that could also be shown with newcomer Duffy. Her debut single Mercy really brings in a classic distinctive rhythm of classic 60's Blues and Soul, which is something we haven't heard on radio in awhile. The song isn't a bad song at all, but I just wish though that she could've brought in a little more grit into her voice on the song. Thankfully, though she does have a strong attitude on the song. I really hope she comes out with better material with her career.

Song: C+

Duffy's "Mercy" is brash,blue-eyed British soul. Her ode to sexual liberation is as feisty as Dusty Springfield's "Son of a Preacher Man." She sings with gusto and passion. Duffy, with her retro sound, is an Amy Winehouse without the baggage. Her song is reminiscent of the '60s. One can imagine the bell bottoms, the psychedelia, and the Beatles in their heyday. "Mercy" is soulful. Have mercy,indeed!

re: Duffy's Mercy mp3 from Amazon

Quality of the mp3 is rough sounding. There is NO headroom; the original source sounds rough, as if the levels were clipped -- they certainly are in this mp3. The encoder does not use gapless metadata that can be found in LAME and even Apple's iTunes (for mp3) encoders, but compared to the lack of quality of THIS PARTICULAR mp3 (only one I have bought), that's secondary.

No lyrics, yes jpeg pic. Rest of id3 (both 2.3 and 1.1) is there. I don't know if the CD track of "Mercy" is better; I can only hope so but I'm sure it too is too "hot" only to sound louder, distortion be damned. Take a look at the signal levels and you can see there is practically no dynamic range - everything is LOUD and volume-compressed, even the parts where she is trying to be soft it's still LOUD. Rarely is there any point where the level is less than 3 dB from max. No wonder it sounds so bad.