The Dandy Warhols - The Dandy Warhols ARE Sound
Monday, August 3, 2009
The Dandy Warhols
The Dandy Warhols ARE Sound
Beat The World Records
The second best thing to come from the King of Pop’s passing, aside from a collective sigh of relief on behalf of the new parents of southern California, is the Dandy Warhols’ eventual cover of “Blackbird,” as promised by the title track of 2003’s Welcome to the Monkey House. However, until the release of said cover, fans of the most essential quartet of Portland hipsters will be happily pacified with The Dandy Warhols ARE Sound, an alternative interpretation of their 2003 release and their most impressive effort since.
Welcome to the Monkey House proved to be a brilliant example of perfectly crafted pop music by Godlike Geniuses (NME, take note) of the American Northwest (a stateside equivalent to Suede’s Coming Up), although the band didn’t see it in quite the same way. While they wanted to release a version of the album that had been mixed by soulful engineer Russell Elavedo, affectionately referred to as the Dragon Elavedo (whose engineering credits were highlighted by likes of D’Angelo, The Roots, and Alicia Keyes), Capitol Records wanted something a little more to the liking of America’s cargo-short-wearing contingent and enlisted a different engineer to release a “whiter” mix of the album.
The polishing of ARE Sound is far less explicit than Monkey House and gives the album a sleazy funk reminiscent of last year’s …Earth to the Dandy Warhols. Singles “We Used to be Friends” and "The Last High” lose a bit of their anthemic kick under the weight of a lazy groove, but they are the only casualties of the release. “Burned” kicks off the album in an epic fashion, “Scientist” has the band more danceable than ever, and “I Am Sound” plays like brilliant twee disco.
In the end, the two mixes of the album are… well, not that different. While ARE Sound is unquestionably a more Dandys-sounding Dandys album, it’s just not as satisfying as their Suedian-scale masterpiece of pop music. While the former was suited for PDX scenesters, Phil Spector fanatics, and “indie” radio listeners alike, the latter sounds more like something inspired by mirror balls and gravity bongs. Izzy Cihak
The Dandy Warhols ARE Sound
Beat The World Records
The second best thing to come from the King of Pop’s passing, aside from a collective sigh of relief on behalf of the new parents of southern California, is the Dandy Warhols’ eventual cover of “Blackbird,” as promised by the title track of 2003’s Welcome to the Monkey House. However, until the release of said cover, fans of the most essential quartet of Portland hipsters will be happily pacified with The Dandy Warhols ARE Sound, an alternative interpretation of their 2003 release and their most impressive effort since.
Welcome to the Monkey House proved to be a brilliant example of perfectly crafted pop music by Godlike Geniuses (NME, take note) of the American Northwest (a stateside equivalent to Suede’s Coming Up), although the band didn’t see it in quite the same way. While they wanted to release a version of the album that had been mixed by soulful engineer Russell Elavedo, affectionately referred to as the Dragon Elavedo (whose engineering credits were highlighted by likes of D’Angelo, The Roots, and Alicia Keyes), Capitol Records wanted something a little more to the liking of America’s cargo-short-wearing contingent and enlisted a different engineer to release a “whiter” mix of the album.
The polishing of ARE Sound is far less explicit than Monkey House and gives the album a sleazy funk reminiscent of last year’s …Earth to the Dandy Warhols. Singles “We Used to be Friends” and "The Last High” lose a bit of their anthemic kick under the weight of a lazy groove, but they are the only casualties of the release. “Burned” kicks off the album in an epic fashion, “Scientist” has the band more danceable than ever, and “I Am Sound” plays like brilliant twee disco.
In the end, the two mixes of the album are… well, not that different. While ARE Sound is unquestionably a more Dandys-sounding Dandys album, it’s just not as satisfying as their Suedian-scale masterpiece of pop music. While the former was suited for PDX scenesters, Phil Spector fanatics, and “indie” radio listeners alike, the latter sounds more like something inspired by mirror balls and gravity bongs. Izzy Cihak
Labels: Music Reviews
posted by Izzy Cihak at
3:09 AM
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