Pete Doherty
Wed 4 Mar 2009
Pretty Rhymes and Perfect Crimes
Possibly the best British song-writer of our generation, but that might be a bold statement that many of you might scoff at. Babyshambles first album Down In Albion is one my favourite albums of all time and pretty much everything Pete Doherty creates sounds absolutely perfect to my ears. His latest work is no exception; with work on his first solo album complete, the first single has surfaced. Titled ‘Last of the English Roses’, it captures Doherty at his brilliant best, with his English accent giving the song a poetic charm and clearly displaying his ability to structure the perfect Brit-pop song. For fans of Babyshambles, the song is in the vein of ‘There She Goes’ or ‘The 32nd of December’.
The track comes from his upcoming début solo album Grace/Wastelands, which has a release date of March 24. Work on the album has been taking place for a while now, in between Babyshambles, and live solo gigs around London. Doherty’s hired help on the album includes former Blur member Graham Coxon, who plays on most of the tracks, Scottish singer Dot Allison, poet Peter Wolfe (who co-wrote and plays guitar on ‘Broken Love Song’) as well as Babyshambles members Mick Whitnall, Drew McConnell and Adam Ficek.
For me it’s one of my most anticipated albums of 2009 alongside Peter, Bjorn and John’s Living Thing.
Pete Doherty- Last Of The English Roses: MP3
Posted by Nick Fulton under UK
March 4th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
SCOFF
March 4th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
hasn’t inland empire already come out???
March 4th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
Yeah it has, Inland Empire was a single from their mostly instrumental album Seaside Rock. I actually got the album name wrong. The album is called Living Thing and has a US release date of March 31.
March 4th, 2009 at 9:06 pm
Beat me to it, but SCOFF.
Being the best British songwriter of our generation is a bit like being the nation with the highest life expectancy in Sub-Saharan Africa, or being the best finger-painter in your kindergarten. Sure, it’s an achievement relative to your immediate surroundings, but when examined in a wider context it isn’t really that great of a feat. Ignoring for the moment that Pete Doherty does NOTHING which hasn’t been done far better before, British music has produced few bands worth talking about since the start of the Nineties. US music is now ridiculously ahead, as American bands have focus on doing innovative things with their instruments and lyrics, rather than getting pissed and going out with Kate Moss.
Other than really underground stuff that I wouldn’t expect to get attention anyway, the last interesting British band were, I shit you not: The Horrors - no, seriously - because at least they were ripping off something that hadn’t been ripped off for a while, instead of the endless sub-Jarvis/Noel kitchen-sink-melodrama/meaningless-bravado route pursued by their countrymen.
March 4th, 2009 at 9:13 pm
even Mark E. Smith is making shit albums these days… *sigh*
March 4th, 2009 at 11:55 pm
i want him and amy winehouse to BREED
March 5th, 2009 at 12:33 am
lol jack 2 - youre retarded
March 5th, 2009 at 12:44 am
but pete doherty probably isn’t really the best british songwriter of our generation either..
but he mightve been close once. thom yorke, stuart murdoch are more my type of thing - although pete doherty and carl barat were for me, one of the greatest partnerships of all time
but please anything to stop me from listening to more p4kcore, im about to kill myself and record it lo fi (backwards + looped w/ delay)
March 5th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
People who like Radiohead and Belle & Sebastian make me want to cry
March 5th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
US music is now “ridiculously ahead” in the field of hooking your guitar up through 16 different echo units, mumbling “innovative” lyrics that are completely incomprehensible to anyone without a lyric sheet, and generally making music that’s completely divorced from the world in which 99.99 percent of the population spend their lives. That’s fine if you’re part of the .01 percent, but it means it’s pointless making comparisons with British bands who actually write pop hooks, have hit records and get recognised in the street.
British “indie” and American “indie” are very different beasts. In the UK, success is when your record goes to number 1. In America, success is when your record gets a 9.4 review on a website staffed by people who got beat up in high school. The biggest indie band in America right now is probably Animal Collective. 299 million Americans have never heard of them. Everyone in Britain knows who Pete Doherty is.
March 5th, 2009 at 7:19 pm
so average.
i just don’t get it.
first time I heard the Libertines I was actually astonished, unable to understand how anyone could get excited by it (except maybe kids who have just bought their first rock record.)
tho graham coxon is awesome, he might bring some interesting with him.
March 5th, 2009 at 8:05 pm
jack 2 is LOL
March 5th, 2009 at 8:07 pm
basically the beatles just ripped off arctic monkeys
March 5th, 2009 at 8:08 pm
animal collective makez me want to sponsor a child
March 5th, 2009 at 10:26 pm
yeahyeah Noel, apples and oranges etc
but I’m not sure if the skill of the 3982398th incarnation of Britpop is responsible for English bands being popstars. I dunno, MAYBE, JUST MAYBE IT’S BECAUSE THE ENGLISH MUSIC PRESS ARE RIDICULOUS.
I mean, White Lies? there’s nothing actually there… even if you can get past the fact that what they’re doing is so behind the curve it’s laughable.
can you IMAGINE how much NME would be jacking off over Animal Collective, YeahYeahYeahs, Deerhoof etc if they were English locals? sheeeesh, we’d never hear the end of it.
though you could argue the English hype machine would discourage them from pursuing their artistry. which brings us full circle.
March 5th, 2009 at 11:41 pm
English bands are popstars because they write pop songs. QED.
NME has a ‘circulation’ of around 50,000, which in reality means they probably shift about 10,000 copies a week. The Arctic Monkeys’ debut sold quarter of a million copies in its first week. Either a) NME readers have so much fucking pocket money they’re buying 25 copies each; or b) “… Dancefloor” is a fucking catchy song that lots of ordinary people (who don’t read NME) really liked.
Animal Collective will never sell that many records. There aren’t enough film students in the world.
March 5th, 2009 at 11:49 pm
And NME jack off Deerhoof et al plenty. They just don’t put them on the cover, because they’re in the business of selling papers. The reason Pete Doherty is on the cover of every second issue is because he sells a lot of papers. The day that stops happening, they’ll stop putting him on the cover.
I remember when the NME used to have bands like Mogwai and Godspeed You! Black Emperor on the cover. They nearly went out of business. Given the current economic climate for print media, I imagine they’ll continue to focus on bands with broad appeal to teenagers, at least for the foreseeable future. So the NME will probably start seriously hyping Deerhoof around about the same time Deerhoof make a hit record.
March 9th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
I love all smackheads… doherty’s no exception. His songs aren’t bad either.