Boyle's I Dreamed Great for Fans, But...

Critics agree that for what it is, Susan Boyle's I Dreamed a Dream ain't half bad. Fans will love it, and the rest of the world may respond with the same odd mixture of feelings that accompanied her television debut. Some takes:

• "Boyle's record is no joke," Linnie Rawlinson writes for CNN, and the singer is "deadly serious." But her chops don't quite stack up. "Without seeing her dowdy frame standing in front of a microphone, the impact of her voice fades." And that is "not a pleasant lesson for us."

• Glenn Gamboa buys into the "compelling" ordinary woman story. "When Boyle connects," he writes in Newsday, "whether it's on the Rolling Stones' 'Wild Horses' or Madonna's post-breakup anthem 'You'll See,' she delivers the song with a clarity and a rawness that's impossible to fake."
• Less impressed is Jim DeRogatis of the Chicago Sun-Times. Boyle doesn't deliver "anything beyond the capabilities of a thousand gifted mezzo-sopranos regularly appearing in musicals staged by community theaters around the world." All the hubbub comes from "Andy Warhol's fabled 15 minutes of fame."
• Might not be your cup of tea, Mike Ragogna writes for the Huffington Post, but come on! It's Susan Boyle! "You've got to root for the underdogs when they're this honest about their convictions, and Susan Boyle is like a singing Rocky of her generation."

(More Susan Boyle stories.)