Ian Dury’s primary appeal lies in his lyrics, which are remarkably clever sketches of British life delivered with a wry wit. Since Dury’s accent is thick and his language dense with local slang, much of these pleasures aren’t discernible to casual listeners, leaving the music to stand on its own merits. On his debut album, New Boots and Panties!!, Dury’s music is at its best, and even that is a bizarrely uneven fusion of pub rock, punk rock, and disco. Still, Dury’s off-kilter charm and irrepressible energy make the album gel, with the disco pulse of “Wake Up and Make Love With Me” making perfect sense next to the gentle tribute “Sweet Gene Vincent,” the roaring punk of “Blockheads,” and the revamped music hall of “Billericay Dickie” and “My Old Man.” [In 2004, Demon released a double-disc deluxe edition of New Boots and Panties!!; the following year, Fuel 2000 released the set in the U.S. The deluxe edition retains most of the bonus tracks from Repertoire's 1996 CD -- "Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll," "Razzle in My Pocket," "You're More Than Fair," and "England's Glory" are here, but "What a Waste" is not -- and the second disc contains 17 demos. Most of the songs on the proper album are presented here in demo form, and these demos aren't all that different musically, even though "Wake Up and Make Love With Me" does have different lyrics. The rest of the disc contains songs that did not make the record, and apart from "Sink My Boats," which appeared on the second album, Do It Yourself, these songs were not re-recorded by Dury & the Blockheads. That means this disc contains new, unheard songs -- "Tell the Children," "I Made Mary Cry," "Something's Going to Happen in the Winter," "Wifey," and "Apples" (which did show up elsewhere on a compilation) -- and that's what makes this a truly essential disc for Dury fanatics. Musically, these songs aren't all that different from what was on New Boots -- it's lite white funk or '50s rock & roll pastiche -- and in spirit, they're often closer to Dury's previous outfit, Kilburn & the High Roads, than the Blockheads (in his excellent liner notes pub rock expert Will Birch does reveal that the macabre "I Made Mary Cry" is a Kilburn leftover). Dury may have decided these tunes were not up to snuff to make it to his debut, but years later they sound like lost gems, and they make this deluxe edition something truly special.] – Stephen Thomas Erlewine