I can’t stand Hard-Fi or Babyshambles.  Hard-Fi’s one-dimensional brand of chirpy cockney toss-rock grates on me something rotten and their last album was more or less entirely bereft of decent tunes.  In the case of Babyshambles, the Pete Doherty Self-Destruction Roadshow has become so mind-numbingly tedious I can’t participate in conversations that even mention his name anymore without needing to walk away and calm down before I punch the person who brought it up in the first place.  And Pete himself is just another artist on a crash course to complete oblivion who has only ever really produced one decent record, and even that was with the considerable help of Carl Barat – a fact put starkly in perspective by the excellence of the Dirty Pretty Things album.

Actually, what I hate most about Babyshambles is not Doherty himself, but his gaggle of fawning acolytes proclaiming him a troubled genius, rather than the mildly skilled fuckwit that he clearly is.  The second coming – of what, for fuck’s sake?  Jordan?  And Hard-Fi are just so desperately mediocre that any acclaim they receive above a barely raised eyebrow and an indifferent shrug of the shoulders is something I find utterly baffling.

And yet and yet and yet…

A couple of recent tracks by both aren’t entirely awful.  Ed actually liked the Hard-Fi album and he’s a pretty reliable judge of these things.  And apparently the new Babyshambles isn’t actually all that bad.  I can’t see myself reversing my position exactly, but its conceivable I might soften it slightly.  In the case of Hard-Fi I’m just amazed they’ve written a song that isn’t completely rubbish, but Babyshambles may have finally produced an album worth listening to.  Maybe.

Babyshambles – Delivery
Hard-Fi – Watch Me Fall Apart

Buy Babyshambles here and Hard-Fi here if you’re feeling so inclined.