Released in 2000 before the Sinead O'Connor collaborations, the Morrissey patronage and the platinum sales of the subsequent "Seize The Day" album, DAMIEN DEMPSEY'S debut album, "They Don't Teach This Shit At School" introduced the outspoken ex-boxer to the wider world and still sorts the wheat from the chaff to this day.
Hailing from Donaghmede on Dublin's tough north side, Dempsey's heartfelt lyrical approach and insights on contemporary Irish urban life are never less than open and honest, though his vocal delivery ( white Dublin geezer discovers rap? Bejaysus!) and - more to the point - whether you have the ability to stomach it is the chief bone of contention here.
Opening track "Jealousy" is a good barometer of whether you'll be able to handle Dempsey's work or not. Musically, it's punchy, semi-acoustic pop-rock with a vague tinge of reggae, but Dempsey's heavily-accented vocal delivery soon puts the cat among the pigeons. I ought to point out here that my favourite singers include many 'non'- voices such as Mark.E.Smith, Dominic Masters and Mick Derrick (Prolapse), but even the likes of these don't quite prepare for Dempsey's north side Dub twang, which can soon descend into parody. Indeed, at times - like on this track or the album's title track (arguably it's nadir) - he sounds horribly similar to RTE'S Dustin The Turkey, something which is hardly liable to augur well on the critical appraisal front.
And what's slightly bizarre about this whole deal is that the chorus on "Jealousy" proves Dempsey can actually sing in a commanding and melancholic way. This curious, uneven approach tends to blight what could otherwise be OK-ish tunes like the mildly amusing "Bad Time Garda" and the would-be epic "Dublin Town," even rendering them slightly laughable however straight from the heart they may be.
The other main problem I have with Dempsey's work here is a tendency to push a rather forced stage 'Oirishness.' Yes, I'm entirely behind the vivid pictures of the Irish diaspora Dempsey paints on lengthy rants like "NYC Paddy" and the even more no-holes-barred "Colony" in principle, but his rap 'technique' is questionable at best and when - on "Seanchai" -he starts bangng on about "poitin" and "the wailing of the banshee outside my cabin door" (yeah - RIGHT) you feel like asking the nearest leprechaun to give him that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow if he'll just shut the fuck up in return!
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And these songs are especially galling when you realise elsewhere that Dempsey has bags of talent when he deals with contemporary and personal issues that don't require him having to ram Irish history down our throats. Indeed, it's when he gets to songs like "I've No Alibi" and "It's All Good" that the album takes a turn for the better. On "I've No Alibi", Dempsey takes a cleaver to a hypocritical artist's cynical relationship with his/ her public ("Buy my tape and praise me/ I'm a God you fool!") and attacks the song's excellent catchline ("I talk shite, shite, shite and they buy, buy, buy") with relish. "It's All Good", meanwhile, matches a brutishly effective lyric ("I am an angry man, I vent it when I can/ on the bag, not the skag") with a deceptively dreamy musical backdrop that works a treat and comes to a memorably simple kiss-off ("Love yourself today, OK OK") which is worth a dozen of his more wordy pronouncements.
But if anything it's when Dempsey succumbs to his gentler, nostalgic side and stops trying so hard that he really succeeds. In fact, for me it's his simpler portraits of his own past that bear repeated scrutiny. "Chillin'", for example, is a gentle, plangent ode to getting away from it all which again features Dempsey's under-used croon, and he returns to this style for the lovely closing "Beside The Sea." This one is framed by some descriptive finger-picking from Dempsey, sympathetic playing from his whole band and reveals an elegance I'd not previously thought him capable of.
So overall, this debut remains a decidedly mixed bag from a character who has made a point of polarising opinion ever since. By the time of his next release "Seize The Day" in 2003 his star would very much be in the ascendant, but where "They Don't Teach This Shit At School" is concerned, you sometimes wish Damien Dempsey had knuckled down to his homework and worked harder at honing his craft instead of settling for any oul soapbox that would have him.
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