New Boots and Panties!!

Ahh, a classic structural ambiguity: [new [boots and panties]] or [[new boots] and [panties]]? Well, that's my quota of writing the word "panties" for the year. (Wiki tells us the intention was the former.)

This album is hard for me to categorize. The music is kind of all over the place (50s....70s....80s), and the lyrics are too. Is the line "Blue Gene Baby" a 'Tiny Dancer' reference? 'I'm Partial to Your Abracadabra' reminds me of Hawksley Workman's 'Jealous of Your Cigarette'. Overall, this wasn't boring but I can't say that I especially liked it.

Slur count = 4.

Tracks 9 and 10 were the first bits of actual music on the whole album. Everything else is basically spoken word/elementary school "poetry slam" (which is perhaps the worst insult I'm capable of making, given my feelings towards children and slam poetry, and the horrifying potential of combining the two). Pretty disappointed with this one as a whole.

Cons:

Even among the mediocre, this is pretty mediocre. Forced rhymes in a childish rhyme scheme. Little substance.

Pros:

Short!

Consistently poor enough that skipping a song halfway through doesn't make me feel like I might miss something. And that makes it shorter!

⭐⭐.25

A bit horny. And by a bit horny i mean quite horny. And by quite horny i mean really horny. And by really horny i mean unimaginably horny. And by unimaginably horny i mean that he could destroy the entire observable universe with his horniness.

He does not have the vocals to make the corny disco-punk (ill-advised combination) sound here work. It's like the worst parts of Damon Albarn's music maximized to 100 times more "OY GUVNA" in my ear for 40 minutes. While I think Ian Dury's personal life/story is interesting, the music is just not very good at all.

"Clevor Trever" is on every vacation playlist I've made for years. don't know why or how it started

knock me down with a fev-va, just got the spelling joke. . .lol this mofo Ian

I have plenty of quirky bands and albums I love that I know not everyone needs to hear. Someone will hear this for the first time and love it, and thats great. Im not that guy.

It’s got a quirky charm to it. The music isn’t bad, but the singing is atrocious at times and sometimes downright annoying. Would not recommend to anyone. 1.5/5

od ovog albuma očekivao sam samo jednu stvar: dobar bas. znao sam da je duryjev basist svirao na par stvari na sandinisti od clasha i da je odradio maestralan posao. i u tom pogledu album me nije razočarao. no sam album kao cjelina, ne znam, počelo je dosta dobro, ali nekako mi nije zadržao kvalitetu do kraja. reći ću da je visoka trojka

Some decent songs, but in general the vocals don't really do it for me. I see why it was included though - very important album from a certain English point of view.

First song: Not sure I’ve ever heard anyone talk about sex while sounding less sexy since T-Swift. White British dude doing a Prince impression? What is happening here?

Rest of the album: Just why?

I will not include the non-album single "Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll" in this review.

I've heard a few songs here and there from singer-songwriter Ian Dury, including the singles from this solo debut album. He was certainly a very unconventional character, combining music hall with elements of punk, rock & roll, and funk, incorporating observational humor and wordplay into his lyrics. That much is evident from listening to New Boots and Panties!!

These songs are character sketches inspired by British everyday life and Ian's musical influences. Whether it's the exaggerated description of his father on "My Old Man", the sexual escapades on "Wake Up and Make Love With Me", or the perceptions of daft people being challenged on "Blockheads", there is some very dry wit that Ian employed in his talk-singing cadence. The humor can come across as sentimental on "Sweet Gene Vincent" with his tribute to the rockabilly icon, or as dire with the portrayal of the girl who ruined herself from taking heroin at a young age on "Plaistow Patricia". Along the way, the music matches the tone across a sampling of genres, from delicious funky licks on "Wake Up and Make Love With Me" and "Clevor Trever" to kinetic hard-hitting riffs on "Blockheads" and "Blackmail Man". The language can come across as very specific to what was going on in Britain at the time, and humor can be very subjective, but for the most part, I can appreciate it.

That said, there are a few tracks I wasn't as into. In particular, I didn't care much for the straightforward music hall number "Billericay Dickie", as this character obnoxiously bragged about his time spent with multiple women. Then a little later, I was into the strutting Steely Dan-esque groove of "If I Was With a Woman" until the very end, with the repeated utterance of the word "laughing" slowly pitched higher, to the point where I was legit uncomfortable. Maybe that's how that song was supposed to make me feel, but it makes me hesitate to come back to it.

Still, I got some enjoyment out of New Boots & Panties!! It's a solid solo debut from quite the cheeky bastard who truly carved his own path.

'You come awake / In a horny morning mood / & have a proper wriggle / In the naughty naked nude.' In a sense, Randy Newman is already the Randy Newman of punk rock, but if you want to get actual & specific, Ian Dury is. A master of sardonic music hall humor - 'I'm partial to your abracadabra' - Dury writes songs of wit & heart, digging deep into narratives of the British working class. Here he's singing 'bout his old man: 'He was tidy in his digs / Had to have an operation / When his ulcer got too big / When his ulcer got too big.' There's plenty of grit, reality, & inventive playing ('Clevor Trever'), a saving grace given the abundance of word play, which w/o some good & solid tunes can get tiresome. In short, it can & does go hard, w/ solos & all.

Wiki heeft het over pub rock, funk, disco, British music hall en early rock and roll, Maar het eerste hokje waar ik bij het eerste nummer aan denk is de duitse synth-pop. Niet door de synth zelf, maar door de manier van zingen. Maar het volgende nummer heeft zeker wel rock&roll in zich. Zo schiet het best wat kanten op en is dit zeker een muzikaal creatief album. Echter, dat lijkt niet het meest belangrijke voor Ian. Voor het geval dat ik het nog niet door had, maakt hij het met Billericay Dickie duidelijk dat het vooral een grappig album moet zijn. Niet mijn humor, en niet iets wat een plekje in de lijst rechtvaardigt. Maar ach, zonder de grapjes luistert het nog wel aardig.

I really didn't enjoy this album. I know it's often praised as witty, quirky, and full of character, but it completely missed the mark for me. If the lyrics were supposed to be funny, cheeky, or satirical, none of that came across—I found them more irritating than clever.
Musically, it felt chaotic and oddly mechanical at times, almost like a strange spaceship soundtrack rather than a rock or pub-rock record. The mix of spoken-word vocals, offbeat rhythms, and quirky instrumentation never clicked, leaving the songs feeling disjointed instead of inventive.
I can appreciate that New Boots and Panties!! was influential and different for its time, and I understand why some listeners admire its originality. But being unconventional isn't enough on its own. For me, the album sacrificed memorable melodies and enjoyable songwriting in favour of eccentricity.
Overall, I found it difficult to get through and wouldn't be in a hurry to listen again. While it's clearly a cult classic for many, it simply wasn't for me.

Enjoyable

What is this?! The lyrics are TERRIBLE and misogynistic. Could barely even get through the first song without cringing.

Awful

A good example of what millennia of inbreeding will get ya.

What the fuck man, I should have been able to die without having to listen to this.

First half was actually horrible but the second half had some bangers