Not Like Everybody Else
- X-Ray Dex
- Jan 27
- 3 min read
I love a new album. I love it like I love cuddles, sea spray on my face and fried tomatoes & Marmite on fried bread. Like Marmite, ‘Not Like Everybody Else’ by The Damned is going to divide opinions.
Let’s start off in a positive fashion.
It’s a tribute to Brian James and the songs by other bands that he held dear. And, to that end, The Damned go through their paces in accomplished style.
As covers go, the band has history as tracks on the early albums or B-sides:
· “I Feel Alright” - The Stooges
· “Help” – The Beatles
· “Looking at You” - MC5
· “Ballroom Blitz” – Sweet
· “White Rabbit”- Jefferson Airplane
· “Pretty Vacant” – Sex Pistols
· “Wild Thing” – Troggs
· “Alone Again Or” – Love
Then there were the bootleg singles under the name of Naz Nomad and the Nightmares – and, of course, the Captain had a massive hit with “Happy Talk”, a show tune from the 1949 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific.
Which is fine.
But a whole album of covers?
It just about worked for Siouxsie and the Banshees with the “Through the Looking Glass” album. It worked because the band was still at its peak and the songs were heavily dosed with individualism.
The Damned were a punk band like no other. The sound was unique and, with The Black Album and Phantasmagoria, they were able to lead the industry creatively. Curtain Call stands as a masterpiece and while they weren’t the first band to play in a goth style, Phantasmagoria put a fire under the subculture.
‘Not Like Everybody Else’ is just like everybody else. It offers photographs of puppies in a world that already has puppies. They’re very competent photos, certainly better than this mixed metaphor, but offer nothing new of note.
You can’t fault the technical aspects of the music, the Captain remaining the pulsating heart of the band, but while once Vanian's vocals commanded attention, age is impacting those vocal chords - the timbre has all but ebbed away. It’s hardly surprising, he’s approaching his 70th birthday. No track is a clearer example of this than “Summer In The City”, vocally limping through whereas there was a time he’d have sonically dominated the track.
There's little by way of the band’s skill at invention too; compare the treatment of Ghost In My House to the version delivered up by The Fall, powered by Brix and a Mark E Smith in his prime.
Amazon reviewers disagree, as does Classic Rock Magazine and the subscribers to its Facebook page: "The band deliver 10 punked-up versions of songs ... this is a joyous romp of an album."
I’d argue this LP doesn’t really have anything punk about it other than the band name. And I don’t find it joyous, especially when compared to the current output of peers such as Ruts DC and Buzzcocks.
It’s a competent album for hardcore fans and vinyl completists, one that more than likely marks the last from a band that defined punk and goth at their peak, ruling Peel’s Festive 50 for a time.
But then is any of that relevant? It’s a tribute to a great man, for most Damned fans that’s all that will matter. RIP Brian.
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