The question is, how long can one remain entirely defined by distractions? That is the art of rock n roll of course, manipulating hedonism into a necessitous guise and selling it on hard and fast. Doherty’s, and therefore Babyshambles’, problem though is that he’s convincing nobody that this is how it’s supposed to be. Like that well-meaning-but-crackers old chap from The Fast Show, Pete popped out for 5 minutes to get a reprieve on his reputation by writing a record worthy of years of near-misses, and instead came back hours later with a torn copy of The Sun, a roll of cellotape to patch up ‘Killamangiro’ (which incidentally he smashed on his way out) and a bewildered sounding ragga-singing cell-mate from Pentonville nick. And now he’s going to try and make a cake with it. The icing is going to have to be really good.
Pete Doherty’s personal distraction isn’t exactly classified information. There are red-top editors who could fill in medical history questionnaires for the boy better than he could himself. And there are those who would crucify him for that alone, as if there are similar entry requirements for writing songs as there are for taking the controls of an aeroplane. But vice and its psychological mazes have justifiably/necessarily pervaded art for centuries, providing pop music with some if not all of its finest and most exceptionally raw moments, from The Beatles and Hendrix, through to The La’s, Nirvana and The Streets. Maybe he’s still too close, maybe he’s mislaid the perspective that comes naturally to anyone outside his inner circle, whatever, but he has failed himself dismally by failing to get any closer to himself on this record (essentially his first solo effort) than the tabloids already have. He doesn’t join that club.
His true strength lies in his poetry, so there are unsurprisingly some nice turns on here. But these are really consigned to couplets ripe for picking out for messageboard signatures, no doubt beside some avatar pertaining cheerily to wasted excess, but they offer little exclusive insight. He merely paddles around in his situation, even exploiting it by roping in Kate Moss on ‘La Belle Et La Bete’ (Beauty & the Beast), a jaunty yet flat duet to soundtrack Middle England’s most recent furore. He spends ‘Fuck Forever’, one of the few moments on the record that sound loaded, iconically lamenting the cult of celebrity, yet simultaneously misunderstanding it by arrogantly yelling “they’ll never play this on the radio!”, which is plain nonsense. Especially when your record company provides a clean radio edit. And swearing’s hardly the final taboo on the shelf.
The real problem though is that he is – apart from when he’s at his absolute best – an average songwriter. That’s hardly bettered here. ‘A’Rebours’ and ‘In Love With A Feeling’, if pushed for a reaction, are okay but indistinguishable from his work with The Libertines. ‘The 32nd Of December’, whilst a breezy enough tune, sounds like the Mock Turtles ferchristsake! And their best song, ‘Killimangiro’, is dragged behind a dustbin and shot. How do you manage that? How do you make a Babyshambles song sound even more like demo than it originally did!? After months in the studio?
The drama has always been what made him captivating, but he’s even beginning to lose a grip on that, surrounded as he is by yes men, unrelated amateurs and his own press. Mick Jones hands-off production technique is also shockingly misguided (or easy money, whichever way you look at it).Everyone here sounds distracted, and while you can expect it from those that desperately cling on to his peculiar celebrity and all the benefits that brings, he has chosen to stare a creative gift horse directly in the mouth, and pawn its saddle. You could say that he’s delivered a nice album of hereditary Brit pop and, even though at 16 tracks you’d be pushing it with that claim, you’d probably be right. But that is the problem. Nobody expected ‘Dark Side Of the Moon’, people barely expected a new chord. But this is scarcely noticeable. It will sell for one reason only.