Welcome to the Monkey House

Today's Music That Jason Has A Lot Of Thoughts About is Welcome to the Monkey House, by the Dandy Warhols. First of all, some thoughts on the presentation of this album that don't have anything to do with the music. The album cover is black, with a yellow banana in the center. The banana is half-unpeeled, with a zipper running down the sides of the peel. It's not completely original (if you think about the Dandys' influences, you'll probably figure it out) but it is simple and clever if a little smug. Still, it looks cool, and it's one of my favorite t-shirts as well. The album title is also taken from a Kurt Vonnegut short story of the same name, and it's a pretty good story. Given the Dandy's innate pedantic nature, these items aren't surprising, but still interesting.

Now, the music. This album represented a real departure from the other Dandy albums; prior to this, their albums had been drug-laced 60's revivalist rock albums, sort of. Maybe that's not completely correct, but 'drug-laced' certainly is. Anyhow, the prior album to this was mostly guitar and voice driven, with some horns and other instruments. This album, though was predominantly electronic, with a good deal of synthesizer leading the way. A lot of people were really turned off by it, people who wanted another Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia. Me? I didn't like it as much as Thirteen Tales, but to be fair, that simply wouldn't be possible. I applaud the band's efforts in trying something new, even if that something also was kind of a fuck-you to the fan base. But I digress.

So what about the songs? Well, some of them aren't so great, and seem to be more fascinated with their sound effects than actually putting any effort into the music - see "The Scientist". Some of them seem to use the electronics much better, keeping the ominous tone of some previous efforts and synthesizing it - see "You Were The Last High" and "I Come In Burned". There's even a song that seems a little out of place here - "We Used to be Friends" - which isn't a bad tune though pretty simple. As a whole, I appreciate the effort, and even listen to this album from time to time, but it does remind us that valor and ignorance are sometimes the same.

In Other News:
Today is better but still unresolved. Also, it's stupid cold out today.