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WELCOME TO THE MONKEY HOUSE
The Dandy Warhols
(Capitol/EMI)
We live in a world obsessed with pop culture, but The Dandy Warhols take it to the max.
Their name, of course, is a pun on the '60s artist. Their latest CD title is nicked from a Kurt Vonnegut book. The cover art blends The Velvet Underground's first album and the Stones' Sticky Fingers. Their languid, trippy sound is a pastiche of '70s and '80s music -- the glam of Bolan, the avant-wave of Scary Monsters-era Bowie, the fuzzy electro-soul of Love and Rockets.
The first verse on the first song name-drops Wire, Elastica, Michael Jackson and The Beatles' Black Bird. By all rights, Welcome to the Monkey House should topple like the house of cards it is.
Yet somehow, these musical magpies manage to keep it together. Maybe it's that frontman Courtney Taylor has a way with a hook, as irresistible groovers like We Used to Be Friends illustrate.
Maybe it's his vocals, which toggle between a hoarse, breathy croon to a soaring soul-man falsetto, adding texture and variety to his bandmates' hypnotic, serpentine backdrops.
Or maybe it's just that the Dandys know how to recombine the best parts of their influences into an entity greater than the sum of its parts.
Whatever, it seems that for The Dandy Warhols, nothing succeeds like excess.
Track Listing
1. Welcome To The Monkey House
2. We Used To Be Friends
3. Plan A
4. Wonderful You
5. Scientist
6. I Am Over It
7. The Dandy Warhols Love Almost Everyone
8. Insincere
9. The Last High
10. Heavenly
11. I Am Sound
12. Rock Bottom
13. (You Come In) Burned