If you’re going to reference-drop two of the biggest names of 20th century pop culture, you’d better be sure you stand up straight among them. In this case, The Dandy Warhols adapt Andy Warhol’s classic cover for The Velvet Underground’s debut (and Warhol’s name) and co-opt the title from Kurt Vonnegut’s book of short stories, so expectations were high for Welcome To The Monkey House.

Unfortunately, if lyrics are meant to indicate, so was the band. The preoccupation with “enhancements” is central in the disc’s best and worst track (the extremely catchy “You Were The Last High” and the extremely juvenile “I Am Over It”, respectively) and pops up throughout the course of the proceedings. The sound of the music is overly enhanced too, sounding perfect all the time but not very excitable. But I’m getting ahead of myself…

The best way to describe The Dandy Warhols’ sound on this, their fourth album, is flawless synth-wave rock akin to the stoner-white-boy-funk-pop-rock (say that three times fast) of Beck’s Midnight Vultures, crossed with a heap of Blur and seasoned with “Panorama” era Cars. To achieve this, the band hooked in with past and future Duran Duran member Nick Rhodes, no stranger to that kind of style. It’s hard to say who played what though as so many session players seem present: studio whiz kids Nile Rodgers and Tony Visconti, both former producers for David Bowie, contribute. Rhodes’ band mate, Simon LeBon pitches in background vox and there are quite a few other guitarists mentioned. I have the feeling that the only actual member of the Warhols left is vocalist and guitarist Courtney Taylor-Taylor.

Musically, everything sounds so in-place and fussed over. Now, I’ve got a soft spot for weird, space-age synth rock, but there must be some leavening agent in there that keeps things from coming off as programmed. Gary Numan’s “Cars” chugs robotically along but is kept anchored by his tweaky, bizarre delivery. The best songs from The Cars had Ben Orr’s affectation of Brit-rock and Ric Ocasek’s odd warble. Taylor-Taylor’s voice, on the other hand, is often a breathy croon, disaffected and dismissive. With a more raw background you’d have some musical tension, but here you get the feeling of another module plugged into that program.

So that’s the sound of the band. Big deal. How are the songs?

Well, they’re fine enough, but not really ‘there’ until track 9, the aforementioned “You Were The Last High”. This time, the perfection pays off with big choruses filled with lots of background vocalists. It lifts up the song and makes it seem so much more that the stuff before it. From there, the songs “Heavenly” and “I Am Sound” give a welcome bit of edge to the works and the trifecta is the best on the release.

The most disappointing is “I Am Over It”, but not because of poor song craft. Instead, it’s marred by dopey frat house accoutrements like the sounds of bong hits and smokeups, Taylor-Taylor’s insistence beforehand of, “Let’s see if we can get this in one toke… Uh, take…” and just the feeling that something very interesting was mucked up to please the ‘hemp-ographic’. Is it sarcasm or sincerity? I can’t tell. Part of satire is the knowledge, to the person experiencing it, that the points made are satirical. Vonnegut and Warhol were both expertly aware of this.

This is endemic of “Welcome To The Monkey House”, knowing that behind ill-advised choices and an overly robotic sound, there’s something really good going. In the end, it is a possibly great pop-rock album hiding in the hairshirt of modern recording techniques and maybe a bit too much ‘mellow’ with not enough ‘harsh’ for balance. High school kids will eat it up, as will Volkswagen Motors who’ll probably license songs for commercial usage, but for me it just won’t stand the test of time like the names the band has dropped.

Search Tour Database by: Artist City Venue

The Dandy Warhols

Welcome To The Monkey House

Released: August 19, 2003
Origination Year: 2003
Time: 48:33
Tracks: 13
Produced by: Courtney Taylor-Taylor and Nick Rhodes
Style: Studio
Format: CD
Enhancement: None
Label: Capitol Records
Website:
www.dandywarhols.com

Welcome To The Monkey House
We Used To Be Friends
Plan A
The Dope
I Am A Scientist
I Am Over It
The Dandy Warhols Love Almost Everyone
Insincere Because I
You Were The Last High
Heavenly
I Am Sound
Hit Rock Bottom
You Come In Burned