Badly Drawn Boy
Born In The U.K.
Release Date: Oct 17, 2006
Genre(s): Indie, Rock
Record label: Astralwerks
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Album Review: Born In The U.K. by Badly Drawn Boy
Fairly Good, Based on 3 Critics
Based on rating 3/5
After just 10 seconds, Damon Gough (aka Badly Drawn Boy) sets the tone for his fifth album, sighing, "I don't think I know who I am any more." The woolly-hatted troubadour has apparently suffered a crisis of confidence over the past 18 months. Last year, he spent five weeks in the studio with producer Stephen Street. They recorded 20 songs, but Gough decided their direction was wrong and scrapped the entire session.
Based on rating 6/10
After a bout with writer's block left most of what would have been the fifth Badly Drawn Boy album on the scrap heap, Damon Gough regrouped by writing a set of songs inspired by growing up in the United Kingdom. The results are Born in the U.K., an album that, of course, nods to Bruce Springsteen's rousing-yet-searching Born in the U.S.A. (the Boss is also thanked in the liner notes), but also feels like it's trying to win -- and impress -- as big an audience as possible.
Opinion: Average
Damon Gough's fifth album is an interesting, if problematic, companion to Bruce Springsteen's working-man's anthem "Born in the U.S.A." Put bluntly, Born in the U.K. is a grower, not a shower. A cursory listen is stultifyingly dull and alarmingly same-y, a pale follow-up to 2004's One Plus One Is One (Astralwerks). A more careful ear reveals the sort of complexity we've come to expect from our Boy over the years.
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