Melody Makers singles reviews with The Dandy Wahrols

Melody Maker
by Peter Robinson
September 4, 1999


The Dandy Warhols Single Of the week 1:
ROYAL TRUX
Waterpark
(Domino)
A bit of a diversion in style and approach from Royal Trux, in that it actually verges on the listenable. “Waterpark” nonetheless bears incomprehensible, yet no doubt rubbish, lyrics, and features a fairly decent impression of “South Park”’s Cartman in the breakdown.

Zia: “Yeah!”
Courtney: “Rock and roll! Great, love it. I’d buy this record. I like it better than anything else so far. Royal Trux rule. I’d actually buy this one and turn the radio up if it came on.”
Brent: “Coooool…”
C: “This is the best thing I’ve ever heard them do. This one should be Single Of The Week. Brilliant stuff, just really heavy and great stuff.”

The Dandy Warhols Single Of The Week 2:
GINTARE
Earthless
(Parlophone)
Ignore the cool, crunchy, abrasive-as-fuck Bjorky single. Ignore the frighteningly fantastic Jan Driver remix that makes virtually every other trance anthem this year redundant. And let us instead turn our attention to the fact that this CD comes in a fab orange plastic jacket and is – get this! – Square! A square CD! Nice!

C: (After skipping through industrial radio edit to the remix.) “I really like this trance type of stuff… I love this shit! Yeah!”
Z: “I like this too! If you went dancing and this came on… Wow!”
C: “Cool. Very, very cool. Listen to that chord change! Fuck! (Dangling head around) It’s another Single Of The Week!”
Z: “What a build-up!”
B: “And the vocals. Yeah!”

GOMEZ
Rhythm & Blues Alibi
(Hut)
In which Ian Ball’s radiant loveliness transcends even the voice of a tramp I recently saw on Oxford Street scooping Spam out of a tin with his bare hands, and who has somehow stumbled into the song’s supposed chorus.

Z: “Oh yeah!”
C: “Right on. Yeah! Where’s the Pearl Jam guy? (Chorus kicks in) Eyy! There he is!”
B: “Like This.”
C: “I would actually buy this record. Imagine that! There’s two singers here – one who sings cool and the other who does the worst Eddie Vedder impersonation in the world. But this is great. Yeah. Is this out? I’ll buy this.”

SUPERGRASS
Moving
(Parlophone)
Kind of not really the best song on the album by a long shot, but still actually rather good, in a weird way. Y’know? Kind of all the tune you want and all the a-bit-stranger-than-anything-else fiddling around that’s always made Supergrass a little interesting. Except…

Z: “Is this a soap opera theme tune?”
C: “If it isn’t, it’s gonna be. It’s the middle-section vignette of an English version of ‘While You Were Sleeping’. It’s not Mansun, is it, by any chance?”
It’s Supergrass.
Z: “Oh nooooo!!!! (They’re on the same label) Noooo!
C: “Uhhh… Something nice… Uhh… I’m not sure what the hell is going on with this. I’m done with this. I think perhaps they’re too concerned with moving with the times, with not being remembered for ‘Alright’ or something. Something’s going on in their heads. Or nothing.”
Z: “That’s too bad. Sorry.”

REEF
New Bird
(Sony)
Here we can observe the tramp from the Gomez record, his fingers still dripping with warm Spam, jumping up and down like a wanky, Somerset-sprung baboon. And lo! It be Reef, with their “new” single. Oh dear.

C: (During Intro) “Hmm… I like this. (Song kicks in) Aargh! I was so worried they were going to do that! (Listens to intro again) Like this bit. (Song kicks in again) Oh no! I don’t hate it but…”
Z: “He wants to be Ozzy!”
B: “And he’s not!”
C: “I’m going to listen to this on the bus.”
Z: “As long as it’s on your headphones.”

THE ALL SEEING I
Ist Man In Space
(ffrr)
The signs should all be there. All Seeing I: two great singles s far. Phil Oakey: single-handedly saved Eighties pop and paved the way for 2wo Third3 and Younger Younger 28’s. How on earth could this fail to be an amazing end-of-decade top pop blow-off? Err…

C: “Is this the band that’s supposed to sound like The Human League? No? This actually is Phil Oakey? Oh, right. He sounds like he’s trying really hard on this one, and he never used to actually try. He was just… there. The music’s OK.”
B: “The production is great. Other then that…”
C: “That’s cool. Sounds like ‘Blue Monday’, though.”

FUN-DA-MENTAL
Why America Will Go To hell
(Nation)
A load off scratchy stuff, enormous beats, the wound of rubber dinghies being slashed with meat clevers, and a bucket of eletro gloops. Not the most lyrically complex single this week. In fact somewhere behind The Vengaboys in those stakes.

C: I’m just waiting around to see if they have the technical mastery to masturbate for four and a half minutes and keep it interesting. And they don’t.”
Z: “The lyrics started to bother me.”
C: “It didn’t bother me, and that is quite a feat. I don’t mind it when Fatboy Slim does it, for some reason. But this… I wouldn’t buy it. But then what would I spend money on? ‘London Calling’, Stooges stuff, y’know? It’s certainly not breaking any ground.”

RAISSA
Walk Right Through
(Polydor)
Really quite astoundingly wonderful string-laden romp through the greatest Motown hits in the world ever – from the miniature Macy Gray! The Warhols are, sadly, immune to its radiant beauty.

C: “Is this some kind of Third World thing…? The production is so not cool, almost to the extent that it is cool. I really like the Nancy Sinatra-era horns.”
Z: “It would be better without any singing on it. No lyrics. Maybe if I was having dinner.”
C: “Yeah, just release the version that she sings on top of on TV. I don’t like a singer that tries this hard – it’s a nice voice, just don’t try, you’ll be one of two people at any time who doesn’t try. You, and John Lennon.”
B: “OK.”

BRASSY
I Can’t Wait
(Wiiija)
Cheeky pop-rap oozes from every groove of this CD, or at least would do if CD’s had proper grooves. Let’s just say it comes out somehow, possibly through osmosis. Either way, Brassy are top-notch and this might even be a little kind of hit!

C: “Why is there parsley in this? (He’s examining his spinach pie, viewers) Why do they always put parsley in spinach? Oh! Er… Simultaneously the most interesting and annoying record I’ve heard yet.”
Z: I would change the radio station if this came on. Not that anyone’s likely to play it anyway.”
C: “It needs to be an emotional kneeshaking experience for me to like it, and… this doesn’t shake my knees.”

Joy Zipper
Transformation Fantasy
(Eye-Q)
The kind of stuff you’d expect The Dandy Warhols to cream their pants over: slinky, dreamy, blahdy, blahdy and there we have it, with an instant familiarity that makes you think you’ve heard this somewhere before.

Z: “What’s this song?”
C: (Singing) “There’s something’ happenin’ here..’ It’s the Buffalo Springfield! I kind of like this through gritted teeth.”
C: “Why didn’t they just call themselves Zipper? That would have been far better.”
Z: “It’s cool music but a bit clichéd.”
B: “A bit too cute for me. But OK.”

YOUNGER YOUNGER 28’S
Next Big Thing
(V2)
Excusing the fact that Younger Younger 28’s are never going to have a hit and that the only “big thing” they’re likely to see is a bill for their unrecouped V2 advance, and excusing the dodgy political standpoint of this and most of their other material, it’s difficult not to see this as a work of Nineties genius. Well, that is, unless you’re a Dandy Warhol…

C: (After five words of intro) “Off! Off!”
Z: “Off! Off! A girl from suburbia?
B: “That is a wacky wack record.”
Z: “Fuck no! That was just a nightmare! God! Is this the worst this week? God!”
C: “Fuck that shit, yo! That shit is fucked!”

CHRIS DE BURGH
When I Think Of You
(Mercury)
Not, sadly, a cover of Kenny Thomas’ splendid 1995 Top 28 hit. Nor is it a duet with that plumber from Dulwich who won “Stars In Their Eyes” by impersonating his hero. It’s just a new Chris De Burgh single.

C: “I like how unpresuming the production is. It’s fucking nice. I don’t like his voice, though, his sheep-like bleating. If this was on the radio, I wouldn’t even be listening to the station in the first place. But I do like the production. Fuck! How refreshing! And if you like Chris De Burgh, then you’ll love his album ‘Quiet Revolution’.”

VENGABOYS
We’re Going To Ibiza
(Positiva)
Let there be no doubt that “We Like To Party (The Vengabus)” is one of 1999’s greatest achievements by either man or Vengaboy. Yet we should be similarity sure that “We’re Going To Ibiza” (a reworking of “Barbados”), represents something of a pre-millennial lowpoint. Such a waste.

C: “Is this Aqua? Hmm. I don’t think I want to hear any more of this.”
But we haven’t heard the chorus yet! C: “Yeah, right, like that’s usually my favourite part of the song.”
B: “Prefer ‘Barbie Girl’.”
C: “Not good. I wouldn’t make that kind of record, even if I had a gun to my head.”
Have you been to Ibiza? Z: “Where? What’s Ibiza?”

ALEX GOPHER
Party People
(V2)
In which Alex Gopher (not a real gopher!) goes in for a whole lot of funky summertime-lovin’ groove stuff. And not very much else. Hmm.

C: “Well, I don’t have anything to say about this, other then I don’t want to listen to any more. Actually, I find that most people who refer to themselves as party people are exactly the ones who don’t know how to party. Y’know? Which kind of says it all, doesn’t it?”

HYBRID Ft JULEE CRUISE
If I survive
(Distinct’ive)
Quite who Hybrid might be is not explained, but this is their second single and they’ve dragged Julee Cruise out of near-unemployment in order to sound a bit like Bjork on this posh slice of orchestro-trance. It’s rather nice.

Z: (To Courtney)”You like this stuff, though I hate it!”
C: “I do like it. The melodies are all there… brilliant. Oh yeah, yeah!”
B: “And the chord changes, they work really well.”
C: “Ooh, don’t like this part. Why? It’s the chorus! Take it off! I like it, though. The start. But hitting the rewind button all the time is more effort than any listener should have to exert.”

GROUNDSWELL
Corrode
(Gig)
Godawful racket which appears to involve an ex-member of Ned’s Atomic Dustbin.

C: “These guys just kinda knock it off, don’t they? There’s so little to it. Even I have never snorted enough coke to like that. Hahahahahahahahaha!”
B: “Hahahahahaha!”
Z: “Hahahahahahahahaha!”

The Dumper – This weeks absolute stinker
DJ HELL
Copa
(V2)A version of “Copacabana” with a load of old beaty nonsense behind it. The Maker can’t quite decide whether it’s the last word in DJ cut-up experimento-pop mayhem, or simply a pile of old shit. Fortunately, The Dandy Warhols are here to clear things up.

C: “I like this hi-fi stuff. It sounds like you’re standing in a doorway and in one room people are listening to music, and in the other room people are… Listening to music, and you can’t hear either of them properly. Even Zia doesn’t suck enough cock to like that one. Hahahaha!”
Z: “Hahahahaha!”
B: “Hahahahaha!”
C: “But just who shot who? This is fucking dreadful! This has to go in The Dumper. What are we doing with it? Uhh… Let’s post it to Royal Trux! Yeah! I, er, dunno why. Just as a present…”