Ian Dury "New Boots and Panties!!" 1977*****

"Assholes Bastards Fucking Cunts and Pricks..." is how Ian Dury starts his song "Plaistow Patricia" and therefore I guess a perfectly acceptable way to start my own presentation. This album of his often features in the "best albums of all time" lists but brought him only moderate success at that time. He was a very unlikely candidate for a rock star: A 35-year old former teacher and father of two children, crippled by polio at the age of 7, the only thing he had going for him was his wit, ingenious wordplay and flair for provocation. He didn't have much of a voice and used to half-sing and half-recite the words. But his aggressive style, sneer and obnoxious cockney accent sat well with the punks and, despite being a generation older and musically more diverse, he's considered part of that movement. What's often not acknowledged is just how good his band (The Blockheads) was. They expertly mixed up funk, rock, reggae, jazz, music hall and punk, every little guitar phrase or sax solo being exactly the right thing at the right moment. Opener "Wake Up and Make Love with Me" has a disco beat with dirty sexual lyrics and spacey moog synthesizer alternating with jazzy piano. "Sweet Gene Vincent" is a tribute to the great rock'n'roller starting as a nostalgic ballad before turning into rockabilly while "Dickie" and "Trevor" are music hall influenced numbers with Dury inhabiting different characters. "Blockheads", "Plaistow Patricia" and "Blackmail Man" closed the original album with a punk attack. "Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll" and its B-side "Razzle in My Pocket" were not part of the original package but fit well here and provide us with the immortal slogan "Sex and drugs and rock and roll/Is all my brain and body need/Sex and drugs and rock and roll/Are very good indeed". The song itself is also a fittingly hedonistic mix of rock, reggae and funk and its addition raises the album's rating to 5*. "You're More Than Fair" is a reggae ditty with rude lyrics, music hall "England's Glory"a song by his old band the Kilburns and "What a Waste" an excellent 1978 single. The album's title derives from Dury's habit of buying everything second hand except from boots and underwear and cover photo is taken outside a clothes shop in Westminster. His son (future singer Baxter Dury) ran in to pose with his dad during the photoshoot, thus getting himself on a record cover 25 years before recording his own debut.

***** for Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll

**** for Wake Up and Make Love with Me, Sweet Gene Vincent, Billericay Dickie, Plaistow Patricia, What a Waste

*** for I'm Partial to Your Abracadabra, My Old Man, Clevor Trever, If I Was With a Woman, Blockheads, You're More Than Fair, England's Glory

** for Blackmail Man, Razzle in My Pocket