by Oliver on July 10, 2023 in Album
„Hey mummy, hey daddy/ Who am I?asks Baxter Dury, putting down his recently published autobiography Lounge Chair with I Thought I Was Better Than You a handful of musical episodes.
With Dury as usual nonchalantly gesturing over the half-empty glass, sonorous (and only rarely a little agitated speech-singing) narrator, to whom the poppy-melodic catchy contrast program hooks of Madeline Hart, JGrrey and Eska Mtungwazi, in front of smooth beats in a subversive groove (brand: not necessarily danceable, but you can, if you want, alone in the outstanding ones Pale White Nissana booming one Long Season-hypnosis, as well Crowded Roomslike a Martina Topley-Bird leaning in the disco, could feel a smug movement from the hips while leaning on the bar) and a loungy, pleasantly reduced soundscape I Thought I Was Better Than You tried and tested in the associations between Gainsbourg and Leonard Cohen, in itself well the direct continuation of The Night Chasers be.
But the intimate level of Dury in the pleasant, fleeting and, despite narrow stylistic borders, variable and entertaining flow is this time based on lines like “But no one will get over that you’re someone‘s son/ Even though you want to be like Frank Ocean / But you don’t sound like him, you sound just like Ian.‘ explicitly stated. Despite the smug distance of observation, this time the events are of a personal nature.
Same So Much Money poses existential questions in the retro-futuristic luxuriant lounge with a relaxed soul vibe, Celebrate Me lets the guitar dream a bit, gives the choir a sacral texture and even pitches Dury further into the curves. Leon stomps orchestrally decorated over a scaffolding, that too Gorillaz would like and Crashes gossips in a club with a satin wing chair.
Sincere is minimalist, but also decidedly optimistic jingling pop in the scissors of form and content, which runs out of the glue after only 63 seconds to the celebratory loading screen Shadow to seduce in the jazz cellar before Glows plucked in folkloric forgivingness on the acoustic guitar to the chirping of birds: “Who knows better than the boy who never listened to anything?/ Who cares more about anyone after they’ve gone away?/ And I’ll hold you closer the moment you’ve try and let go of me.“
The 51-year-old Baxter not only has his own eclectic language as a musician for a long time, but has already emancipated himself from the judgment of being “only” Ian Dury’s son with his fabulous debut album. Clearer than on I Thought I Was Better Than You however, this became rare.
I Thought I Was Better Than You by Baxter Dury
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