Mick Jagger and Keith Richards’ Wild Horses was hardly the most obvious repertoire choice to be expected from Susan Boyle, but she has done herself and The Rolling Stones proud with her impassioned take on the Sticky Fingers classic.

Likewise, Boyle adds a degree of gravitas and vulnerability to Madonna’s melancholy You’ll See, which was not so evident on the original.

This was not supposed to be the case; those expecting a car crash of an album from the most ridiculed of TV talent acts need to sample humble pie. Even when song choice is more obvious, Boyle breathes a tragic rawness very seldom heard.

Take Cry Me A River, for example. Amazingly, Boyle’s reading is infinitely more sincere and moving than recent covers by say Barbara Streisand and Michael Bublé. Boyle sounds as if she has cried enough tears to fill the Clyde. And her downbeat, minor key cover of The Monkees’ Daydream Believer is inspired. Quite frankly, I’m shocked.

By comparison, Leona Lewis’s manicured Echo lacks the raw emotion and drama of Simon Cowell’s other protégé. Actually, Lewis has delivered a second immaculately polished album of well constructed and beautifully performed originals, which compare favourably with the likes of Jordin Sparks and Jennifer Hudson. The left-field cover of Oasis’s Stop Crying Your Heart Out is inspired. But if you are prepared to listen without prejudice, Boyle delivers the knockout blow.