"I'm just a boy from Birmingham / Another imposter on a major label roster / How did I get here?" So sings Mr Ben Hudson a few tracks into his second album, Straight No Chaser. It's a reminder of the downright strange position in which the formerly folky singer-songwriter finds himself. Together with his old band The Library, Hudson's first single peaked just outside the top 40 and he seemingly disappeared soon after. Then he was plucked from near-obscurity by super-fan Kanye West. In terms of relative fame levels, it was a bit like The Strokes' Julian Casablancas deciding he just had to work with Dominic Masters from The Others.
The first fruits of the West-Hudson collaboration featured on West's 808 & Heartbreaks and were followed by 'Supernova' - a smash single that deservedly hit number two in the charts and hung around the top ten for aeons. That track opens up this collection, and while it's the most immediate thing here, it far from overshadows the rest of the set. West also pops up on 'Anyone But Him', a bitter retelling of the 'Girl Is Mine' storyline that boasts some sharp production and wonderfully jealous sentiment ("I'd rather hear you'd had the whole football team/ Than have to watch his filthy lips on your skin"). The spot-on tone of resigned hurt even excuses the gaucheness of some of the rapper's rhymes ("Now when she go black she ain't never coming back/ I'm sorry Mr H, I thought you already knew that").
His vocal contributions aside, West's influence as the album's "executive producer" is far from hidden. Straight No Chaser sits comfortably next to West's last record in the same way that Iggy Pop's The Idiot nestles alongside its producer David Bowie's contemporaneous Low. The sparse beats and Spartan keyboards on 'White Lies' underline the similarities between the two albums, and when the vocal trickery kicks in on 'There Will Be Tears', 'Stiff Upper Lip' and especially the title track, you almost have to stop yourself from checking that you haven't accidentally stuck on West's album.
Despite that, Hudson does more than enough to ensure that the album is still his own. Its finest moments, such as 'Learning To Live', 'Time' and 'Instant Messenger', find his naked and sometimes fragile vocals vying with the starkness of the production. It sets up a hot vs. cold/man vs. machine battle that draws you in as the subtleties of the sound and intelligence of the lyrics become increasingly apparent. Hudson recently told DS that West's goal with Straight No Chaser was to "make a pop record". In truth, this album is rather too downbeat and quirky for that title to be easily bestowed, but it's all the better for it.
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