Listening to Donny Osmond's take on 'Young Love', I'm reminded of what Ulric Goldfinger once said to James Bond about something or other: "Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action." Replace "enemy action" with "clear and cynical milking of a young audience with yet another predictable cover version that exploits both their own and Donny's inherent non sexual sexuality" and you'd be pretty much summing up my feelings about this. I mean, come on - 'Puppy Love', 'The Twelfth Of Never' and now 'Young Love'; it's a steady diet of full fat sugary pop (it's a wonder Donny kept those teeth so white) presented with no other end than to tug the heartstrings of a demography whose sole knowledge of love is to write 'I ♥ Donny' over and over again in their schoolbooks.The usual reference point for 'Young Love' is Tab Hunter's 1957 version which Osmond and his band follow faithfully, the only real concession to originality being a spoken word verse in the middle. Osmond is a better singer than Hunter and he gives a more plausibly juvenile interpretation than the latter's stiff and rather too serious delivery that came wrapped in a voice sounding like someone old and square enough to be smoking a pipe inbetween verses. There's no such worries from Donny's squeal, but (and I've said this before) neither is there any sincerity in the 'Just one kiss from your sweet lips will tell me that your love is real' lyrics - Osmond is a cipher singing what he's been told to sing by those in charge of his career. Luckily though, those self same people choose wisely, and Donny's natural 'tools of the trade' and innocent charm are enough to carry it across it's brief running time without coming a cropper, but this schtick is wearing thin.
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