Amy Winehouse, what hath thou wrought? In the wake of the Great Beehived One's world-beating success, it seems everyone is getting in touch with his or her retro-soul muse. The latest bandwagon-jumper is Seal — who, with megaproducer David Foster playing the part of Mark Ronson, has delivered a collection of classic-soul covers, dripping with melodrama and tricked out with swooping symphonic orchestration. Seal is a fine singer, whose flavorful tenor combines the smoothness of old-school crooners like Johnny Mathis with a pleasing hint of down-home grit. But the songs he has chosen — Sam Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come," James Brown's "It's a Man's Man's Man's World," the Impressions' "People Get Ready" — have been reinterpreted so many thousands of times, he'd have to reinvent them to get anyone to pay attention, and the only thing new that Seal brings to the party is a feeling of swank Euro-sophistication that saps the music of much of its emotional oomph. Soul is an unnecessary record.