Mr. Maserati - Best Of Baxter Dury 2001-2021 (LP)

Baxter Dury has spent two decades perfecting a very particular kind of late night talker, the sort who leans in with a sly grin and a story that might be a confession or a wind‑up, sometimes both. Mr. Maserati – Best Of Baxter Dury 2001-2021 gathers those tales into a tight, wryly elegant set that plays like a guided walk through his world. Released in 2021 on Heavenly Recordings, it works as both a primer and a keepsake, especially if you came in during the acclaim around The Night Chancers and only just started doubling back through the catalogue.

What stands out across this set is how clear Dury’s voice has become without ever losing its smudge of cigarette ash and neon. Early cuts like Cocaine Man have that woozy, after-hours pulse, all space and mutter, while the selections from Happy Soup tilt brighter, teasing out a pop sensibility he’d keep reshaping. By the time you hit the mid‑period run from It’s a Pleasure and Prince of Tears, the rig is humming. Miami still lands like a calling card, a swaggering monologue that’s somehow both ridiculous and painfully honest. Palm Trees floats on a synth haze but hides sharp elbows, which is very Dury.

A big part of the charm is the conversational back‑and‑forth between his spoken drawl and the cool female vocals that shadow it. That contrast runs throughout these tracks and gives the songs their shape. The trick never feels cheap. It’s a theatrical device that keeps revealing character. Prince of Tears, with its cresting strings, remains one of his most cinematic moments, and hearing it sequenced alongside Almond Milk and other highlights shows how carefully he’s built that melancholic glamour. You can tell why The Night Chancers drew such strong reviews in 2020, including a five‑star nod from The Guardian. The selections here from that record, Slumlord in particular, have that same stalk of bass and diary‑page dread that made it so compulsive.

There’s new bait for long‑timers too. D.O.A. slots neatly into the timeline, proof that the character studies haven’t run out of angles. Around the time this compilation arrived, Dury released his memoir Chaise Longue, and the pairing makes sense. The book unpacks the upbringing and the odd fame‑adjacent life he has always hinted at, while Mr. Maserati acts like the soundtrack to those memories, refracted and dramatised. He has never traded solely on pedigree, though everyone knows he’s Ian Dury’s son. What he inherited is a feel for rhythm and a taste for sly observation, but the voice here is unmistakably his.

The production choices across these songs reward a good listen on a proper setup. Later material often involved Ash Workman, and you can hear that sleek, balanced touch. Basslines bump but never swamp, synths fizz without turning brittle, and there’s room around the vocals for the asides and sighs to matter. On vinyl it really breathes. If you spot Mr. Maserati vinyl in a Melbourne record store, do yourself a favour and grab it. The sequencing makes sense side to side, and that nocturnal sheen seems built for a turntable. If you’re hunting from the couch, you can buy Baxter Dury records online pretty easily these days, and this is a smart first pick before diving into the studio albums.

As a best‑of, it dodges the usual pitfalls. It doesn’t try to make him something he isn’t or sand off the edges that give the songs their bite. Instead it leans into his narrow focus and shows how much variety he can coax from it. A lot of singers tell you who they are. Dury tells you who he thinks he is in that moment, then lets the harmonies question him. That’s why even the most quotable tracks keep fresh. You catch a new aside, a small keyboard figure, a shrug tucked into a line you missed last time.

For collectors, this sits neatly next to Baxter Dury albums on vinyl like Prince of Tears and The Night Chancers. For the curious, it’s an invitation that actually delivers. The title hints at flash, but the music is full of small truths, petty cruelties, and a tenderness that sneaks up on you. If you’re building a stack of Baxter Dury vinyl, start here, then trace the path forward and back. In a sea of compilations that feel like contract obligations, Mr. Maserati feels lived‑in and purposeful, a proper portrait of a singular talker who turned his half-lit observations into something lasting. And if you’re browsing for vinyl records Australia wide, this one deserves a spot near the front, ready for that next late night when the stories need company.