Why Does Your Misfortune Give Me Such Pleasure...?

Baxter Dury has had a rum deal on these pages. I've only featured him once previously, as part of a Dubhed selection in November 2022 and even then it was an instrumental!
 

Back then, Minsky Rock - aka Sydney Minsky-Sargeant (Working Men's Club) and Russ Orton (ex-Fat Truckers) - took  "the basic cells of a sleepy spoken word number and [turned] it into a bastard 80s electro animal". 

This time, Baxter has teamed up with Paul Epworth, who first piqued my curiosity with his remixes as Phones in the early 2000s, including Banquet by Bloc Party and The Futureheads' cover of Hounds Of Love by Kate Bush. In 2025, similarly exciting music has resulted.

“I don’t want to say it’s contemporary,” Baxter drily observes. “Because I sound like a c**t using that word. But it does sound really contemporary."

If I'm honest, new single Schadenfreude reminds me more of those heady early years of the 21st century, but that's no bad thing. Baxter inhabits this new musical clothing like a well worn suit and his world weary narrative plays off well against the pulsing, exuberant melody. 

Guest vocals from JGrrey aka Jennifer Clarke add to the feel and the Gareth Bowen-directed video seals the deal.

Baxter's ninth album, Allbarone, is out in September and, after twenty plus years of dipping in and out of his music, it's shaping up to be my first.

And if the album title conjures up some exotic Mediterranean setting, separate it into three three-character words and it'll bring it somewhat closer to home and a less salubrious setting...

Schadenfreude

Schadenfreude

Schadenfreude

Schadenfreude

I was in a hotel in Stockholm

Waiting for you to call

But you were off with that doughnut

Laughing behind my back

Then I read a bitter review

About a band you're in

To be honest

I got schadenfreude

Déjà vu on the hotel foyer

Ignored the thing you said

Back flips on MDMA

An aisle seat on a cheap airline

Trying to get to Lithuania

I think of you to calm my nerves

A busy stage will solve my pain

And you'll be another ghost

That never knew how much I thought about...

Thought about...

But I still got schadenfreude

Déjà vu on the hotel foyer

Ignored the thing you said

Back flips on MDMA

Ignored the thing you said

Schadenfreude

Schadenfreude

Schadenfreude

Schadenfreude

Schadenfreude

Schadenfreude

Schadenfreude

Schadenfreude

Schadenfreude

Schadenfreude

Schadenfreude

I got schadenfreude

Schadenfreude

Schadenfreude

Schadenfreude

I got schadenfreude

Schadenfreude

Schadenfreude

Schadenfreude