My Way? Ian Brown might have cockily titled his sixth solo album after a Sinatra standard (though chances are it was the raucous Sid Vicious version he had in mind), but the former Stone Roses frontman claims that the recording was actually inspired by Thriller. Eerily enough, the mastering was reportedly finished on the day Jacko passed away, something that Brown took “as a good omen.”
Hmmm, he talks the talk, but can he moonwalk the moonwalk? One glance at the album cover – in which the singer is pictured wearing a defiant Liam Gallagher-style facial pout and a tracksuit top with his own image emblazoned on it – and it’s clear that the Manc’s still got no shortage of swagger and self-belief. However, Thriller was the ultimate singles album, with every song a stand-alone hit. Like all of Brown’s previous outings, My Way has a few truly superb tracks, but some fairly forgettable filler too.
Recorded at Battery Studios (where the Roses recorded their classic debut), and co-written with long-time collaborator Dave McCracken, My Way finds him in somewhat reflective autobiographical mood, pondering his place in the pop universe. The title of jaunty keyboard-driven opening track ‘Stellify’ translates from the Latin as “to be turned into a star.” He has his detractors, but he knows where he stands: ‘I Stellify/I’m miles high/I Stellify.’
He also knows where he’s come from. Later, he makes a couple of not so subtle allusions to his Roses years on ‘For The Glory’: “And when the bombs began to fall/I didn’t do it for the roses/As I was striding ten feet tall/Well, that’s another story/For the glory.”
The gorgeously melancholic and blissed-out ‘Always Remember Me’ sounds like his swansong, the tune he wants played over the closing credits of the movie of his life (and could the “paint on the walls” line be a reference to the time the Roses colourfully redecorated their record company offices?).
Although his singing is certainly distinctive, Brown has a fairly limited vocal range, which results in a very samey and occasionally monotonous sound. So it’s not so much that the album has any dud tracks, more that you can have too much of a good thing. Also, some of his lyrics come across like they were scribbled down in a school exercise book. On the synthy ‘Crowning Of The Poor’, he sings, “Billionaires in their yachts can’t live the life that I got/Zillionaires on their plots can’t stop the crowning of the poor.” Thankfully, the delivery more than makes up for the substandard lyrics.
My Way also features an inspired cover version of one hit wonders Zager and Evans’ ‘In The Year 2525’. If he’s still going 16 years from now, the 62-year-old Ian Brown will undoubtedly still be doing things his way.