New Gig / New Video

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/nov/11/new-band-slow-moving-milli e
Hometown: Herefordshire.

The lineup: Amelia Warner (vocals, piano).

The background: You may not have heard of Amelia Warner, who goes by the name of Slow Moving Millie, but chances are you will, because next week her version of the Smiths' Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want airs on TV – it has just been chosen as this year's Christmas advert theme song by John Lewis, just as Ellie Goulding's version of Elton John's Your Song was the chain store's Christmas 2010 signature tune. Morrissey has given the cover his seal of approval, but that might just be because he's got his eye on other matters. Certainly, Smiths fans are less than impressed with it, one describing it as a "serious crime against music".

It's not the 29-year-old's first soundtrack work. Warner, called Slow Moving Millie by friends because they believed she attacked her music career with insufficient vigour, is no stranger to TV advertising – her song Beasts featured in a Virgin Media ad and she has composed music for several short films. The daughter of actor Alun Lewis, she's appeared on telly herself, and in films. In fact, such is her enthusiasm for celluloid that she spent five months married to Colin Farrell, to which the only appropriate response must be: "That long?"

But it's for her music that she wants to be known, although not necessarily her own songs: her first widely heard release will be that Smiths cover, and it will be followed by Renditions, an album of versions of 80s hits by Tears for Fears, Thompson Twins, Bananarama, Yazoo, Black and Fiction Factory. An odd selection, to be sure. None of the big boys and girls, just the decade's also-rans, save for Please, Please… and a version of Frankie Goes to Hollywood's The Power of Love. What, no Poison Arrow, Partyfearstwo, Play to Win or Love Action? Still, it's an interesting exercise, to hear these quintessentially synthetic songs rendered in a healthily organic, piano-led way, sung by Warner in her pure, clear folky voice. If nothing else, Renditions proves that, beneath the machine hum and haircuts, these were strong tunes, and that, as she says, there is a sadness beneath the frippery and froth worth uncovering: "The lyrics are really dark, but then trussed up in these manic assaults of melody and sound. The production is so big, and so busy. But underneath they're actually all really poignant songs, and they're all about having your heart broken."

It's hardly the major act of reappraisal that was David Bowie's Pin Ups or even Bryan Ferry's These Foolish Things, but there is value in Renditions. Sometimes the covers backfire: given the Yuletide telly context, Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want goes from being a metaphysical plea to a song of cold capitalist desire. Context counts in pop as much as content (discuss): the version of The Power of Love lacks, well, everything of the original, in particular the thrill of hearing a song of quasi-religious devotion as the third part of a triptych about apocalyptic sex and nuclear war. In Warner's hands – and dulcet tones – it's just another piano ballad. Still, Hold Me Now is the first cover of a Thompson Twins song to our knowledge to resemble a Judy Collins folk requiem while Love in the First Degree finds Bananarama's bumptious ra-ra-skirted jollity replaced by a prim melodicism, and on Don't Go Yazoo's techno-pop classic moves in waltz time. There are a couple of self-penned songs available to hear. Hart With a Crown and Chain is simpering balladry recalling such non-countercultural blonde makeweights as Mary Hopkin and Judie Tzuke while Beasts has some of the Disney-ish prettiness of Mummers. She's unreconstructedly girly, is Millie, but who are we to spoil her fairytale?

The buzz: "Beautiful tune sung by a lady with a gorgeous voice" – amazon.co.uk.

The truth: Now That's What We Call The 80s Revisited In A Ballad Style.

Most likely to: Flame on burn desire.

Least likely to: Protect you from the hooded claw.

What to buy: Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want is available from 11 November. The album Renditions is released on 12 December.