Friday 21 December 2007

Albums of 2007: #6


Babyshambles - "Shotter's Nation"

The old adage states that Pete Doherty is a Marmite man, you either love him or hate him ... and the majority of people who hate him appear to do so based on the newspaper headlines and his public lifestyle ... two points to make here:

- its not the man that should count, its the music !!!

- what are people basing their opinion on? The drugs? Thank Christ the Beatles and the Stones ain't trying to cut it these days then eh?

In my opinion, the Libertines were never given the recognition and respect they deserved ... Arctic Monkeys et al have a lot to thank them for I suspect.

Lets face it though, Babyshambles' first offering "Down in Albion" was patchy at best ... things didn't look good for post-Libertines Pete.

"Shotters Nation" is a different story all together, this is as good as any off The Libertines' output and appears to have been largely under recognised.

The opening "Carry on up the Morning" is classic, self deprecating Pete ... "its wasn't easy, getting out of my bed ... its too easy, getting out of my head ... " is the "look, I know I'm f**ked up" marker in the sand.

The single, "Delivery" follows and turns out to be one of the weaker tracks here and is followed by the superb Libertinesque "You Talk".

"Unbilotitled" is as deep and personal as things can get for someone who's life is as public as Pete's "... you said that you loved me, why don't you f**k off, anyone would think you were only ripping me off ... " Many of his so called friends are dismantled here, some named, others obvious.

More Libertine stylee tunes follow in the guise of "French Dog Blues" and the storming "Baddie's Boogie" ... in between these is the beautiful "There She Goes".

Things are closed off with the introspective "Lost Art of Murder".

Marmite aside, there can be no argument that this is a brilliant album, not just good, brilliant ... you might not like it (even those who have actually listed to it) but its quality cannot be denied.
I bet if any of these is going to get a comment ... its this one !!!

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