Rolling Stone's Welcome To The Monkey House review
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Rolling Stone
Welcome To The Monkey House
by Matt Hendrickson
September 4, 2003
Drug rockers clean up act without getting dull
In the course of their first three albums, the Dandy Warhols perfected their form of Velvet Underground-infused drug rock. But on Welcome To The Monkey House, they escape the haze, with help from an unlikely quarter: producer Nick Rhodes, also known as the keyboard player for Duran Duran. Rhodes does an admirable job of making the Dandies bounce instead of drone. Monkey House recalls the mid-Nineties Duran Duran (rather than the pomp of the Rio era): chunky bass lines, electronic spins and blips, and wavy vocals. Duran’s lead singer, Simon Le Bon, even gets into the act with a mind-boggling falsetto bit on “Plan A.” Left intact is head Dandy Courtney Taylor-Taylor’s wry fuck-off wit – best utilized on the driving pop of “We Used To Be Friends.” Sometimes rehab doesn’t make you boring.
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