The Dandy Warhols – “The Best of the Capitol Years (1995-2007)” (Capitol) (rating 7 out of 10)
The Portland quartet known as The Dandy Warhols were born kicking and screaming in 1993, making music to, ahem, “drink to,” an alternative soundtrack for slackers, stoners, and midnight tokers which celebrated the permanent vacations of the elegantly wasted. Think Keith Richards with New Wave hair. Lead Dandy Courtney Taylor-Taylor had clearly been educated at the School of Rock. His motley crew of carefully recruited outsiders looked chic (fringes, cheekbones, hips), borrowed from the best (Stones, Velvets, Bowie, Dylan), and actively encouraged chaos, disorder, and public nudity at gigs. The doors of perception were wedged permanently open. Just like the truly great, they had their own proper film celebrating their rise (the unmissable “Dig!”) and, for bonus cool, their own imagined TV theme song. The Mount Rushmore of Rock surely had space for Taylor’s snarling mug.
“The Capitol Years” captures their time in the fast lane, livin’ la vida loca, lounging in limos popping pills and reading Sartre. Whereas their penniless urchin contemporaries coughed “sell out” from the dungeons of indie clubs, Taylor looked to the stars: number ones, billboards, mansions, monogrammed bathrobes, art dealing, golf. There are a good, half-dozen moments here when, dammit, it should have worked. It’s so close you can taste it in the grooves. The Dandys had a gift for fizzy four-minute space pop, from the mechanical bull rides of “Everyday Should Be a Holiday,” “Boys Better,” and “Bohemian Like You,” to the dreamy, twinkling Bowie-esque “Last High” and perky newbie “This Is the Tide” – all white-hot, genius pop with skyscraper melodies. Even the tracks time forgot such as “The Scientist” and “Plan A” now seem expertly fashioned, fixing the foundations for funky futurists like Hot Chip and MGMT. It was exhilarating, joyous pop that deserved to be beamed from radios, clubs, TVs, and enormodomes alike, not chained and weeping in some grimy basement bar to an audience of three devotees and a dog called Bobby. – Matt James
Read more: http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2010/08/24/1584637/sound-affects-music-reviews-and.html#ixzz0xe5hgiRv
