Sunday Times's Welcome To The Monkey House review
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Sunday Times
Welcome To The Monkey House
by Mark Edwards
May 18, 2003
WHILE the rest of us mutter under our breath as strangers carry on
idiotic mobile phone conversations around us, the Dandy Warhols
probably just chuckle to themselves. Thanks to the band's Bohemian
Like You being used in a Vodafone ad, they have a level of fame in
Europe that has eluded them back in America. A track from this album
could easily find its way onto an ad — maybe the positively (yet
realistically) titled The Dandy Warhols Love Almost Everyone. This
illustrates the band's change in direction. Gone is the rock swagger,
to be replaced by chilled synth pop; because among the people the
Dandys love are Duran Duran and David Bowie. Duran's Nick Rhodes
produces most of the album, while Simon Le Bon guests. The first
question the Dandys asked Rhodes was, presumably, "can you do a Scary
Monsters sound?", because Bowie's early 1980s album is the key
reference point: a sample appears on one track, the Ashes to Ashes
rhythm on two others, as well as a lovingly re-created squeaky synth,
and even Scary Monsters' producer Tony Visconti, who (just to confuse
matters) relives his T Rex sound instead. The Dandys remain
essentially pastiche, but they continue to do it rather brilliantly.
Three stars
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