The Dandy Warhols – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Dandy Warhols are a US rock band formed in Portland, Oregon, by Courtney Taylor-Taylor (vocals, guitar), Zia McCabe (keyboard), Peter Holmström (guitar), and Eric Hedford (drums), who left in 1998 to be replaced by Taylor-Taylor’s cousin Brent De Boer. The band’s name is a pun on the name of American pop artist Andy Warhol.
The Dandy Warhols are strongly influenced by The Velvet Underground, Beach Boys, Simon and Garfunkel, The Beatles, The Shadows, and The Rolling Stones as well as including implicit musical references to My Bloody Valentine in some songs. Front man Courtney Taylor-Taylor describes the band beginning as a group of friends who “needed music to drink to.”[
With a pedigree like this, I really should like this CD better. I bought it in a Dublin music store on the strength of “name recognition,” as I’d heard something by them on WXRT. Ripped it to iTunes, but never actually got around to listening to it all the way through before now. I fell out of the iPod/iTunes habit because at work I was told I could no longer listen with headphones under my headset while waiting for a call.
Wait, whut? Yes, it’s not uncomfortable or difficult to switch with the right headphones, especially the iPhone ones with the built in pause/start clicker. I could hear the caller on the headset just fine. But a VP at work saw me while clients were visiting and didn’t think it was quite the thing. Only now am I getting back into music via iPhone. So I’ve climbed back into bed with laptop, iPhone, headphones, USB cable, and tea to rip a CD… but not in the way you think.
Pause for cough. Cough over. Here we go:
Musee D’Nougat 14:46
This song is fourteen minutes and forty-six seconds’ worth of self-indulgent musical wanking. Inconsequential, pleasant New Age instrumental with fake British or German nattering and airport-announcement “found sound.” Vaguely Pink Floydish, kind of relaxing, so I moved it to my “Sleep” playlist. There’s a little bit at the end that sounds like a really annoying ringtone; if it’s bad enough to wake me up (I really do use that playlist to help me fall asleep) I will delete this waste of a quarter of an hour.
Valerie Yum 7:01
The chorus sounds like “meow meow meow meow meow.” Listenable, but only if you like cats.
Beast Of All Saints 4:47
Don’t remember. That was 10 minutes ago. The title has a vaguely churchy, vaguely evil ring to it, though.
The Legend Of The Last Of The Outlaw Truckers AKA The Ballad Of Sheriff Shorty 3:44
This song is shorter than its title. Good, though, first one I liked.
Mis Amigos 4:31
Two good cuts in a row, hope this is a trend. Sounds like “Baby Elephant Walks After Dropping Acid” and includes percussion on oil drums (not tuned), a motorcycle, and (I think) a chain saw.
Now You Love Me 3:09
Straight ahead, propulsive requited-love song. Think this is one of the songs I heard on the radio, I like the break with the off-beat jangling guitar.
Love Song 3:48
Pretty, jangly. That’s about it.
Talk Radio 5:28
Slower rhythm. Really makes the lead singer’s rough “hey I’m a rock star singing a ballad” voice kind of repetitive. Does he ever come out of this sotto voce mutter? Oh, and that musical break is totally a shout-out to Led Zep’s patented “let’s play some weird-ass time signature that’s not divisible by two or three” trick.
And Then I Dreamt of Yes 4:42
Now THIS is the song I’d heard that made me want to buy this CD. Lead singer applies the “Taco” old-timey radio filter. Voice not perceptibly different from other songs on the CD, though.
Wasp In The Lotus 4:36
Oh, good, another whispering homage to Claudine Longet. Atmospheric, though. It’s clear that I really like the instrumentation and almost like the backup singing, but I’ve really taken against the lead’s breathy faux-drama. It’s as if Trent Reznor of NIN never broke into the primal screams. The backup singing is nothing special – these guys can hit the correct notes capably, but their real talent is in playing instruments, and layering found sounds.
Welcome To The Third World 5:50
Thank goodness, whispering disco a la “Miss You” era Rolling Stones. It’s about time. Ah, actually singing in head tones now… sounds a lot like Fee Waybill. Do they NEVER turn off the echo filter??
Mission Control 2:16
A funky electronic groove; we appear to be channeling Midnight Oil‘s Peter Garrett in a slightly less scary baritone, but it’s obviously an uncomfortable stretch.
The World The People Together (Come On) 4:42
Hurray! Last song! It’s different sounding than the rest! Yay! Still a big ol’ wall of jangly, but it’s in a higher key and what a relief it is. I notice this Courtney Taylor-Taylor, the lead singer, can’t seem to sustain a note comfortably without having to “do” something; either filter it, add fuzz, or deliberately fall off the note. He’s got no resonance, no tone; can sing a little, but not that well. Doesn’t have enough color in the voice to be ballsy about it, either; not everybody can pull off a raspy delivery and overcome it with great phrasing.
Frustratingly, the next song on iTunes was “Lift Thine Eyes” from Handel’s ‘Elijah,’ a piece I sang a month or two back as part of a trio. This damn cough has made me croaky as a frog, so I couldn’t sing along for shit as a kind of musical palate-cleanser.
I’m usually not so happy to get to the end of a CD. Taken individually, most of the songs are likable enough, but listening to the whole thing (especially without skipping that fourteen minute monster at the beginning) is trying my musical patience. And every song is frustratingly familiar; I don’t have the right kind of memory to be able to cite a specific group on every song, but they all sound a whole lot like somebody else’s hit, except slower and with more jangling.
Um, I think you made a mistake when you ripped the CD, Musee D’Nougat is the last song on the album, actually w/0 looking at an actual copy of it you either have it on shuffle or listened to it in reverse order.
Also, that’s a real British voice and a friend of ours from France doing all the talking on Musee….
Another thing, why not just preface the whole review with the fact that you are more into vocally driven albums? Your whole review would make a lot more sense with that info at the beginning. I did agree with you on one thing though,
‘And The I Dreamt of Yes’ is also one of my favorite tracks on the album. Anywho, maybe give it another shot in the correct listening order. Or not, whatever. Happy New Year! Zia
Thanks for the comment – it sure could have been on shuffle or in reverse order when I listened in “liveblog” mode. It had been a long time since I’d ripped a CD: operator error is entirely possible.
I’ll have to check the CD to see, but I bought it while on a trip to Ireland and hadn’t actually listened to it at all in the months since we returned. So I wasn’t really familiar with it other than having heard the one song that I liked.
Also thanks for the detail about the speaking voice.
Hey Ginny!
Came by you’re review. Too bad you started off with Musée… Even The Dandy Warhols would not put a 14-minute track first on their album.
When you’re – after this – still interested in the other albums they’ve released, you’d notice that there’s a more experimental, longer track at the end of each album. This one is not their best, though.
Main point is that you should not buy the Warhols for their understandable lyrics, but for singing that totally fits in with the music. With that in mind, I think it’s the best album they’ve put out in years. Great car-cd, for example.
If you’re not too disappointed in the Dandys yet, you should also try their songs ‘Smoke it’, ‘All the money or the simple life honey’, ‘Plan A’ or ‘Minnesoter’. Give them a try!
All the best,
Jurry from Holland