New Boots and Panties!! received good reviews from the music press upon its release.
Allan Jones in
Melody Maker described the album as "a tense, harrowing account of urban degradation, that conveys with more vocal, musical and lyrical vehemence than any so-called 'new wave/punk' combo has yet been able to muster, the desperation and squalor of the social conditions (and the effects of those conditions upon individual personalities) it so provocatively illustrates." In
Sounds Vivien Goldman gave the record a five-star rating, saying, "Lawless brats from council flats have finally found a voice that speaks from, of and about the people. A voice that combines passion with the vernacular 'she got into a mess with the
NHS' – sage street advice, plus cinematic observation, plus humour."
Record Mirrors
Tim Lott observed that "if you can grapple with the sheer unorthodoxy of it it's easy to fall in love with for its quaintness, its limerick simplicity ... The character of
New Boots and Panties is indomitable, like Dury. It's a curiosity piece and a pop album and a good joke and sometimes a bad pun and a shot of Bohemian romantics and a load of crap and totally fascinating."
Roy Carr in the
NME said: .. it's impossible to bag Ian Dury, except to say that he has taken the essence of the
Cockney music hall and utilised rock as a contemporary means of expression. On occasions,
Ray Davies has dallied with a similar approach, but Dury has none of the self-conscious pretentions that Davies exposed in his flawed Flash Harry caricature. Ian Dury feels no need to adopt a transatlantic voice to comply with his subject matter, preferring to deliver ribald and bittersweet monologues in the tone of voice he was born with ... Whether or not you buy
New Boots and Panties at least make hearing the album a priority. It's your loss if you pass. In
The Guardian Robin Denselow praised the honesty of Dury's songwriting, saying that the singer "has refined (if one can use such a word of Dury) his early style into a remarkable, distinctively London-orientated blend of cockney music hall, rock, and
Bowie-style electronics. This is mixed, with no nonsense and no frills, with a set of powerful, forthright and honest lyrics that will send self-consciously daring punks scurrying back to the safety of their dole queue clichés. I admire him for the way he throws himself full tilt into his emotions, using a backdrop as squalid as the worst of the East End for songs of unashamed sexuality, admiration, or hate. The tribute songs – straight and never mawkish – are to Gene Vincent and to Dury's father, and equally honest are the demented, stream of consciousness tirades." The album was not a hit in the US, but reviews by American critics were also positive. The music critic
Robert Christgau was impressed by the album, writing, "The tenacious wit and accuracy of his lyrics betray how uncommon he believes his blockheaded protagonists really are, and his music rocks out in the traditional blues-based grooves without kissing the past's ass. Tender, furious, sexy, eccentric, surprising."
Rolling Stone said, "A provocative combination of
Toulouse-Lautrec and
Chas Bukowski, Dury punks out in a laughingly distasteful way even as he sits on a cushion of personal warmth, feigning indifference. Whatever you choose to make of his talents, you won't be left untouched." In 1983's
The New Rolling Stone Record Guide, John Swenson deemed it a "great" album. Contemporary reviews have similarly praised the album.
AllMusic said Ian Dury's primary appeal lies in his lyrics, which are remarkably clever sketches of British life delivered with a wry wit. Since Dury's accent is thick and his language dense with local slang, much of these pleasures aren't discernible to casual listeners, leaving the music to stand on its own merits. On his debut album,
New Boots and Panties!!, Dury's music is at its best, and even that is a bizarrely uneven fusion of pub rock, punk rock, and disco. Still, Dury's off-kilter charm and irrepressible energy make the album gel. Reviewing the 1998 reissue, Tom Doyle of
Q believed that "
New Boots and Panties!! remains the creative yardstick he [Dury] can never quite measure up to", while in 2012
BBC Music stated, "Dury's work quickly mellowed (well, relatively), but the combination of cheeky ire, libertarianism and jazzed-up music hall punk on
New Boots... was defiant, original and, 35 years later, stands as a mighty missing link between
the Kinks and
Blur."
The Encyclopedia of Popular Music calls
New Boots and Panties!! "the late Ian Dury's greatest album; rarely has a musical artist been so loved and respected ... He should be remembered for his dynamite band the Blockheads and this necessary album". Critical reviews of the 40th anniversary box set in 2017 continued to praise the album. Terry Staunton of
Uncut called
New Boots and Panties!! "a calling card that dabbled in jazz, music hall, retro rock'n'roll and Kinks-ian character studies. [Dury] could have been dismissed as a
Dickensian cartoon, were it not for the eloquence of his lyrics, his sly humour and the formidable musical range of his partner
Chaz Jankel, whose playful arrangements brought depth and ballast to the odd-looking bloke at the mic." He concluded that neither of Dury's following two albums on Stiff Records "could match his debut's invention and charm".
Record Collectors Daryl Easlea described the 40th anniversary edition as "a joy to behold" and that
New Boots and Panties!! "remains a truly singular album full of magic and wonder. No small thanks to its coterie of characters, real and imaginary, that Dury brought along to so capture the imagination."
Mark Blake of
Q said, "You can hear late-'70s London all over these songs... Yet
New Boots... is more than a period piece. It has endured. Punk's DIY ethos and rejection of conventional pop star glamour enabled Ian Dury rather than dictated to him. The man and his songs were too contrary to fit into any box or era." Summing up the record, he stated, "Forty years on,
New Boots and Panties!! has lost few of its brilliant imperfections".
Accolades New Boots and Panties!! was ranked at number 2 in the
NME writers' list of the albums of the year for 1977 and at number 7 by
Sounds. In June 2000
Q magazine placed
New Boots and Panties!! at number 66 in its list "The 100 Greatest British Albums ... Ever!" A similar list in July 2004 titled "50 Best British Albums Ever!" ranked
New Boots and Panties!! at number 39. In its April 1998 list of the "50 Best Albums of the '70s"
Q placed the album at number 43. In October 2013
NME placed
New Boots and Panties!! at number 240 in its poll of writers past and present for The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. It is ranked number 495 in the 2005 book version of ''
Rolling Stone's
500 Greatest Albums of All Time. It was also listed in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die''. == Track listing ==