Released: 07/09

The assiduous Ian Brown continues his swagger towards supremacy with this his 6th solo album release. The aptly titled My Way pretty well sums up Ian Brown’s ascending musical career since the demise of The Stone Roses in the mid-nineties.

The opening track and first single Stellify obtains its name from one of these unusual words that Ian occasionally likes to slip into his songs meaning ‘to place among the stars’, not to be confused with ‘Stella-fied’ the result of a heavy night supping the ‘wife-beater’. The song, originally written for Rihanna, sparks into life with a recurrent stomping piano riff soon followed by the familiar monotonous vocals of the Mancunian Wordsworth.

Following on from the success of his protest track, Illegal Attacks, the protagonist continues his one man tirade against The Establishment with a mariachi trumpet infused cover of Zager & Evans’ 1969 number one hit, In The Year 2525, a song which portrays a gloomy future for humankind.

There has always been speculation that songs on previous albums have been aimed acrimoniously at former band mate and pal John Squire but My Way pulls no punches with By All Means Necessary and So High leaving the listener in no doubt as to who the lyrics relate to. Nevertheless, perhaps the most melancholic song that Brown has recorded to date, Always Remember Me, poignantly recalls the rose-tinted, paint splashing days of The Roses prior to Squire ‘walking himself into the wilderness’, as Brown eloquently puts it.

The 46 year old singer is showing no sign of hanging up his microphone just yet as Brown refers to himself as the Marathon Man, insinuating he still has a long journey ahead. Does this mean we should refer to him now as the ‘Monkey Marathon Man?’ Heavy on the synthesisers, Marathon Man is reminiscent of New Order’s 1990 World Cup song World In Motion (thankfully without the John Barnes rapping). This track stirs up the same emotions as Survivor does to Rocky Balboa with a chorus that will have you gurning up those museum steps at the end of your 10k run.

Now that Ian has covered the ‘social awareness’ album with The World Is Yours and the ‘autobiographical’ album with My Way, it will be intriguing to see where the next album will takes its inspiration from. With his famous quote in mind “it’s not where you are from, it’s where you’re at”, let’s hope the Squire goading is now laid to rest and Brown can continue to experiment and expand on his already impressive musical repertoire.

www.ianbrown.co.uk

David Higgs