4 out of 5

Label: Capitol

Produced by: Nick Rhodes

I’d owned some Dandy CDs out of some kind of sense of obligation – appreciating their general sound, their m.o., and the way they were blending loud guitar sounds that appealed to my grunge-grown heart with this self-aware rock star vibe, making the drugginess and glam of that scene palatable to me in a way it normally wasn’t. I didn’t connect with their lyrics but I thought that Courtney Taylor rechristening himself Taylor-Taylor was hilarious; I didn’t get their singles stuck in my head, but I preferred what they brought to the airwaves over whatever else was developing in the late 90s / early 00s. Like, conceptually I liked the Dandys, I just never actually got into their music. Go figure that their most radio-sheened album to date – ditching distortion for electro glitter and stoner jams for club bomp – is the one that finally solved the equation for me, opening up the doors to further appreciate their music.

Welcome to the Monkey House is kind of the carnival house version of a pop album, which is to say: it’s the Dandy’s take on one. While I still haven’t heard the original mix (later released as The Dandy Warhols Are Sound), even though Nick Rhodes synthed up mix makes the conceit likely more obvious, the album’s lyrical focus on superficiality and the leaning in to danceability is part of the songs’ DNA – the concept is there, regardless of what levels are brought to the fore. And I’ll agree that Rhodes does overplay the low-end quite a bit, resulting in some sameyness as the album wears on, but the sequencing makes the group’s general genre subversions more impactful by stacking the end of the disc with “truer” Dandys material: guitar-focused, with Taylor-Taylor finding some emotional notes amidst the vacuousness of the rockstar life. Closer (You Come In) Burned is then an interesting intermingling of things – electro once more, but back to a creeping, 7-minute pace.

Swinging back around, the album’s first half is pretty much nonstop singles: everything is solid, everything has a point within the album’s context (including being silly, accessible head-bobbing material), and each tune pokes and prods at this shiny, happy smile-for-the-cameras version of the band from a slightly different angle until the pokey “The Dandy Warhols Love Almost Everyone” at the album’s midpoint indicates the shift where things start to broaden and maybe wander a bit.

Let’s be clear about something: I don’t consider this a work of deep subversion, or anything that smart. The Dandy Warhols were always aiming for some level of mainstream success, but they’ve maintained an offbeat attitude about it that’s given their music an interesting undercurrent. Welcome to the Monkey House is the looking glass at what that success could’ve sounded like without that attitude. (But, y’know, they can’t avoid smirking while putting on the act anyway.)