The Dirty Is Done

The Dirty Is Done
Studio album by Shell Ruin
Released	October 29, 2007
Recorded	May 2007 – September 2007 London, England
Genre	Pop, electronic, hip hop, experimental
Label	Ensemble
Producer	Shell Ruin, Alesha
Shell Ruin chronology
Kill Pop (2007) The Dirty Is Done (2007) Charm Offensive (2008)

The Dirty Is Done is the third studio album by British recording artist Shell Ruin. First released on October 29, 2007 by Ensemble Entertainment, the album followed Ruin's second studio album Kill Pop which was released just seven months earlier. The album was preceded by the single "My Teaches" which became one of Ruin's signature songs.

The album was critically acclaimed upon its release and is credited for influencing several albums that were released in the following year. Sonically, The Dirty Is Done is a pop album that is noted for taking influence from a wide range of different genres including dance, electronica, raggee, ska, crunk and hip hop. Thematically, the album is centered around Ruin's rise to prominence, fame, wealth, drug use, partying, love and heartbreak. Keith Caulfield of Billboard magazine described the album as "a masterpiece", noting that "Ruin is just like any other twenty-something British singleton that you'll find in the nightclubs of London — except she's filthy rich and famous".

Ruin released "My Teaches" to huge commercial success, becoming one of her biggest selling singles to date and being certified Platinum soon after its release. Despite this, Ruin abandon the project, leaving her record company Ensemble to release further singles without music videos or promotion. "Hair of the Dog" was released to moderate success in January 2008, and won Ruin her first Urapopstar Award for the category of Best Songwriter. The album's promotional campaign was rebooted in July 2008 with the release of "In for the Kill", which became Ruin's first number one single.

Development

In early 2007, Ruin ended her hiatus from music with the release of her second studio album Kill Pop which was released in March. The album was a moderate success and spawned the Top 10 singles "All That Glitters" and "Jealous Girls". Shortly after, Ruin teamed up with her close friends and recurring collaborators Alesha, Buffi and Taylor Brookes in July 2007 to release "Power Power", which they described as an "epic tour-de-force". Adverts ran on Channel 4 throughout the campaign and both songs were A-listed by BBC Radio 1 within the first week of their initial release. Despite the highly publicised promotional campaign and hype, the song failed to enter the Top 10 of the Official Singles Chart and a backlash against the four began shortly after following their controversial antics during the release of the single.

During the promotional campaign, Ruin began writing and recording her third studio album. Ruin was highly influenced by sound and style of "Power Power", and the new song "Sound the Horn" which was featured on the re-release of Kill Pop and was initially written with the intention of being included on her third studio album. In August 2007, Ruin confirmed that she was close to finishing the album. In a short interview with Mixmag magazine, she said "Kill Pop eased me back into music but there's so much more I want to experiment with. The next album is going to be more powerful lyrically and much bigger sound-wise". Ruin described the album as "fluorescent, bitch, dynamite, crunk, dark, fierce, sex and sugar." That same month, the working title of Here I Come was revealed by Peter Robinson of Popjustice. Referring to "Gasoline" and "My Teaches", Robinson said "the song combines a sample of elephants and babies along with rave stabs and crunk beats, whilst our favourite of the four is sure to become Shell's signature song when it's released".

In September 2007, Ruin announced the release of The Dirty Is Done and its lead single "My Teaches" via her official website.

Music

Style and lyrics

The Dirty Is Done explores a more innovative approach to pop music, straying from the typical verse-chorus form present in most songs. Alexis Petridis of The Guardian wrote that The Dirty Is Done is "a record that dispenses with the tiresome business of verses and instead opts for songs apparently constructed by stitching eight different choruses together." BBC Music exclaimed that Ruin "has resuscitated its corpse by wedding chart-friendly melodies to experimental avant-garde sounds". The album takes influences from a wide variety of sources, including "everything from French chanson to piano-pounding blues to the clipped R&B of the Small Faces". Rapping in the same vein as artists like Betty Boo and Neneh Cherry is prominent. Guitars are present for most of the album. Yahoo! Music says "there's nary a 'formula' in sight. There are as many sudden tonal and tempo switches as the tricksiest Chicago art rock band. And all but one song here gives guitars a starring role." The songs are noticeably less rooted in electronic music, although "Kleptomaniac" is "a dark, squiggly synth pop epic" and "Hair of the Dog" is composed of "little Royksopp-like keyboard riffs".

The album was described as "a concept album which relates to Shell and what it's like to be a twentysomething girl in London". The Guardian said that the album's "lyrics sound like Blur's Parklife rewritten by the editorial staff of Heat magazine" and "holds a distinctly ambiguous mirror up to noughties celebrity." Ruin came under fire for the album's allegedly "dirty lyrics". "I'm surprised that some of my lyrics have caused a stir. I'm just having a laugh, and a lot of the songs are very tongue in cheek," commented Ruin on the matter. She told i-D magazine that songs like "Strangers with Candy", which "lampoons promiscuous females", are "observational rather than autobiographical." "My Teaches" was also criticised for its use of the word "shit", while "Hair of the Dog" allegedly "toys with the Ruin's reputation for partying a little too heartily." "Intro", co-written by close friend and collaborator Alesha, also "delves into the [...] topic of drug use."

Release

The Dirty Is Done was released in Ireland on 26 October, 2007 and in the United Kingdom on the following Monday. The album debuted on the Official Top 40 Albums Chart at number five, with first week sales of 109,394. The album was released internationally in December 2007.

Critical reception

Upon release, The Dirty Is Done was highly acclaimed by music critics. Aggregating website Metacritic reports a normalised rating of 73% based on seventeen critic reviews, indicating "generally favorable" reception. Mark Taylor of POP magazine described the album as "Twentieth Century 'It' Girl pop at its finest" and felt that Ruin "laid the groundwork with Kill Pop, but with The Dirty Is Done she marks her arrival as the demented Princess of Pop." Talia Kraines of BBC Music decided that the album was "quirky, modern and dripping with attitude" and "holds no disappointments." Virgin Media gave the album five stars, saying it was "bursting [...] with invention, quirky lyrics, tongue-in-cheek sauciness and [...] appeals to grown-up pop fans and music critics as well as to the teenyboppers." John Lucas of Allmusic considered it "a short, sharp and tight collection of some of the most exciting music" and complimented it for being "a perfectly constructed whole without becoming a tedious homogeny". Elizabeth Mason of Rolling Stone rated The Dirty Is Done four and a half out of five stars, describing the album as "ballsy pop with moments of eclecticism which [...] results in hair-curlingly exciting music" and stating that "Shell Ruin has arrived". Matthew May of The List praised the album's "witty lyrics, insanely infectious melodies and soaring choruses that explode out of nowhere", as well as its "groundbreaking production" and called The Dirty Is Done "a standout example of some of the best British songwriting in years".

Alexis Petridis of The Guardian called The Dirty Is Done "witty, diverse, experimental and viscerally thrilling" and "by any standards [..] pretty irresistible," while Nick Levine of Digital Spy found the songs "fun, frivolous, catchy, sexy and innovative," and noticed that the album is Ruin's "most danceable album to date". A reviewer for NME reated the album a 7 out of 10, saying that Ruin "has been marked by genre-hopping," while commenting that The Dirty Is Done "will continue the trend." The reviewer also highlighted the songs "Hair of the Dog" and "Gasoline" as "unbeatable future pop hits". Steve Jelbert of The Times gave the album a mixed review, deeming it "as predictable as a motorway, but fun.

Track listing

1. "Intro"
2. "Gasoline"
3. "Kleptomaniac"
4. "My Teaches"
5. "Hair of the Dog"
6. "Heart Rules the Head"
7. "El Bastardo"
8. "Mannequin See, Mannequin Do"
9. "Strangers with Candy" (with Cleo Clarice)
10. "Fluorescent"
11. "Kitsch Bitch Kool" (Ruin/Alesha)
12. "Made of Money"
13. "In for the Kill" (with Jack Stevens)
14. "Vanilla"

Digital bonus tracks

1. "Sexy Boy"

Notes

• Track 1 co-written and produced by Ruin and Alesha
• Track 11 co-written and produced by Ruin and Alesha
• Track 14 contains a sample of the song "Big Branch" by M.I.A.
• Track 15 written by Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel

Charts

Chart (2016)	Peak position
Urapopstar Top 40 Albums Chart	5