The Dandy Warhols

The Dandy Warhols began in Portland, OR with their first album, Dandys Rule, OK? Released in ‘95, the album was enough for Captiol Records to take notice and sign the group to a long-term deal. The Dandy Warhols Come Down, their first album on Captiol, provided the band their first hit single, “Not If You Were The Last Junkie on Earth,” a song with a poppy guitar riff and infectious refrain of “Heroin is so passé.” Thirteen Tales from Urban Bohemia came next, an album that solidified their standing in popular music here and abroad. A spree of licensing for television ads, particularly with the catchy hit, “Bohemian Like You,” helped expose the Dandys to a mainstream audience.     

In 2003, the band released Welcome to the Monkey House, an album with a name taken from a Kurt Vonnegut short story collection and cover art grifted from the Velvet Underground. Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran produced the album, ostensibly dusting off the synthesizers from the fashion-rocker’s garage and layering in beats and effects not seen since his “Wild Boys” days. The album is quintessential Dandys, marking their penchant for sounding, at times, like an unimaginative tribute band molding their sound to someone else’s for an entertaining, but uninspired result. Simultaneously, tracks like “You Were the Last High” succeed by joining Rhode’s syth-heavy influence and Courtney Taylor-Taylor’s stoner lyrics for a catchy, trippy hit. The band’s strong suit has always been blending styles, not necessarily creating them—but why reinvent the wheel when you can layer a moog keyboard beat over the sound of it rolling perpetually forward? 

Odditorioum or Warlords of Mars followed, proving the band had embraced the synthesized ways that Monkey House started. The newest offering, Earth to the Dandy Warhols, is the sixth album from band, and it marks their departure from Capitol Records. This time around, they’ve gone the self-released route, putting the LP out on their own label, Beat The World Records. The physical album won’t hit stores until this fall, but it’s available now as a download. The Dandys once again solicited help from some big-name talent to bolster the album—Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits and Mike Campbell of the Heartbreakers both appear on “Love Song,” a song with a bit of country twang layered into Taylor-Taylor’s airily modified vocals.

“Welcome to the Third World,” a standout song, parodies 70’s funk, adding synth touches for punch lines as Taylor-Taylor’s voice comically stretches to a deep, evocative crooning, as if Isaac Hayes had recorded the theme from Shaft in a spaceship bound for Mars. “The Legend of The Last of the Outlaw Truckers AKA the Ballad Of Sheriff Shorty,” with its shit-kicking verses and otherworldly refrain—complete with vibraslap and ricocheting bullet effect—might just be one of the strangest songs the Dandys have ever created. If it weren’t for the pervasive outer space feel—complimented by the album’s spacesuit-laden aesthetic—Earth to the Dandy Warhols would be as odd and genre hopping as a vintage Ween album. As it stands, the newest Dandys offering is a continuation of the band’s emulation-based trajectory, a progression that now finds them attempting to give subtle nods to their influences rather than writing blatant tributes. Daft Punk have done spacesuits, Ween have cornered weird. With a sampling of each, the Dandys have created their own niche—though slightly borrowed—somewhere in the middle.