Blue (Simply Red album)

Blue
Studio album by Simply Red
Released	19 May 1998
Studio	Westpoint Recording Studios, Funny Bunny Studios, Whitfield Street Studios and Abbey Road Studios (London, UK) Archer Studios (Kingston, Jamaica) The Hit Factory (New York City, New York, US)
Genre	Pop soul dance-pop
Length	46:59
Label	East West
Producer	Andy Wright Gota Yashiki Mick Hucknall Stevie J
Simply Red chronology
Life (1995) Blue (1998) Love and the Russian Winter (1999)
Singles from Blue
"Night Nurse" Released: September 1997[1] "Say You Love Me" Released: 27 April 1998[2] "The Air That I Breathe" Released: 10 August 1998[3] "Ghetto Girl" Released: November 1998 (UK)[4] "To Be Free" Released: November 1998 (EU)

Blue is the sixth studio album by British band Simply Red. It was released by East West Records on 19 May 1998 in the United Kingdom. Initially conceived as a cover album,^[5] it features production from lead singer Mick Hucknall as well as Andy Wright, Gota Yashiki, Stevie J, and Joe "Jake" Carter. Hucknall, Wright, and Yashiki are the only musicians featured in the Blue CD booklet's photography; this is a first for a Simply Red album, as all prior albums featured photos of the various band members credited.

The album includes five cover versions: "Mellow My Mind" from the 1975 Neil Young album Tonight's the Night; two versions of the frequently covered "The Air That I Breathe", written by Albert Hammond and Mike Hazlewood; the Gregory Isaacs hit "Night Nurse"; and "Ghetto Girl" by Dennis Brown, from whom the band would cover another song in 2003. New versions of previously recorded Simply Red songs also appear here: "Come Get Me Angel" is a rewritten version of the 1996 single "Angel" (an Aretha Franklin cover), and "Broken Man" was first released as a B-side in 1987. "The Air That I Breathe Reprise" samples "Jack and Diane" by John Mellencamp. "So Jungiful", found on the Japanese edition of the album, is a jungle remix of "So Beautiful" from the band's previous album, Life.^{[citation needed]}