It's extremely difficult to talk about Doherty's music without descending to the seventh circle of Tabloid Hell, so music mags can't be blamed for rehashing twice-told tales of Doherty's old band The Libertines, nights of debauchery with supermodel Kate Moss, drug charges, court appointments, and aborted rehabs.  But no one really bothers to ask why we care, and I don't mean the question rhetorically. 

The subject of voyeurism must be of profound interest to Doherty.  He is England’s Brittany Spears, except more practiced.  Oh, and he’s genuinenly talented.  Like most celebrities best known for their criminal record, he welcomes the attention as much as he abhors it.  The interplay of this dynamic formed the nucleus of the maelstrom that was Down in Albion, the first Babyshambles LP.  Critically reviled and virtually unheard of in the US upon its release, the album is becoming increasingly relevant as an essay on the cultural void tabloid media is currently filling in both the UK and US.  While it seems that Americans are aware of this disturbing trend, they don't seem eager to stop consuming it. 

Well, if there's anyone who knows anything about not suppressing the impulse to stop, it's Mr. Doherty.  Let’s just say he's aware of a certain “problem” he has but in no hurry to fix it just yet.  So you see, we all have more in common with the man than we might be comfortable admitting.

Down in Albion is fairly criticized for paper-thin production, cursory editing, a handful of moments that don't really register as “songs” or even tunes, and, chiefly, solipsism.  It's true, Doherty mostly sings about how fun/awful it is to be him.  It's true he can't be bothered to sing on key or enunciate the words.  It's more like watching a burning building than a train wreck:  There's somebody inside who may or may not be well enough to exit, but no one’s going to get close enough to find out, so they just stand and watch the fire. 

The album reads like a tour of Doherty's brain on any given Saturday night/very early Sunday morning, not a finished product ready for consumption.  The free-wheeling atmosphere is no doubt calculated.  For a man who hates the idea of being watched as much as he loves it, it seems necessary that the album be unpleasant in some areas.  As he says in the finger-wagging “What Katy did Next,” “If you play with fire, you will get burned.”

With that in mind, the discernable moments on Albion have more pure-pop ambitions than anything he recorded with The Libertines, despite Mick Jones' (yes, of The Clash) best efforts to sully them.  Doherty’s a crowd-pleaser at heart, and he gives in to this impulse more times than not on the album.  As a man of punk himself, Jones understands the significance of blurring the line between band and audience, product and consumer.  The Libertines achieved this state through their live shows, especially the early ones, where they would announce that they’d be having gigs at their flat just hours beforehand.  Albion's songs are less taught and punkish than those found on Up the Bracket, but they take an undeniably punk aesthetic to the extreme.  That is, it's important that listeners feel like they're right there in the studio or on the street or wherever the band recorded the thing, rather than consumers buying a pre-packaged product. 

Consequently, unhinged moments abound.  On “Merry Go Round,” someone can be heard falling over and crashing a mic stand.  “Up the Morning” begins with the hiss of tape before the band begins a take, stops, then starts over.  On “8 Dead Boys,” Doherty begins a playground chant before Patrick Walden interrupts him with a bit of feedback from his amp, as though to say “back to work!”  Listening to the album for the first time is a visceral, occasionally violent experience. 

But for a session that just sounds like junkies jamming in the wee-hours of the morning, Albion is actually a quite complicated mess.  Doherty extends his hand to us and then pulls it away, like he's not sure he should be doing it, or that we should be reciprocating.  “Why would you pay/To see me in a cage/that this whole world calls a stage?”  he asks on “Kilimangiro,” one of the stronger tracks on the album.  Yeah, why?

Because Doherty has a way with flavor and atmosphere.  Songs like “La Bella et la Bete” and the melancholy “Stix and Stones” benefit greatly from doses of burlesque--it's hard not to think of a place like Boulevard de Clichy when you hear theguitar  line on “La Bella et la Bete.”  The song proceeds like a perfectly demented piece of theatre and even has a surprise guest vocal from Kate Moss.  The song's conversational lyrics (“Met two fellas over gin and mixers, we talked for awhile, you soon get the picture”) further bring Doherty's fantasyland to life.  You can practically see the moon over the rooftops. 

Doherty's supreme gift is his ability to expose the glamour in ugliness, and believe me, there's real ugliness in Albion.  But maybe it's such a fun place to escape to because we know we can stop the ride with the push of a button.  Sadly, that doesn't seem to be the case for its author.