It almost feels like sacrilege to say it, but more than most of the “new underground” bands that surfaced in the post-Nirvana maelstrom that suddenly found so many acts with readymade credibility (bands as far flung as The Flaming Lips, Constantines and Beck were all ranking members of this crew), few seemed to need the presence of a major label so badly as The Dandy Warhols. Always flaunting a significant pop jones and boasting a mercurial writing palette along with a lead singer that was higher maintenance than most, The Dandys were prime fodder for the major label machine and, not surprisingly, they shone brightest after Capitol picked them up. For those records, every quirk the band had turned to gold and the machine marketed it to every other available media outlet (but TV and movies mostly) to make them omnipresent. Audiences ate it up too, which made it an easy sell; The Dandy Warhols were a really infectious band with cred to burn (the feud between singer Courtney Taylor-Taylor and Brian Jonestown Massacre made both household names) just weird enough to get the underground community’s attention but with a broad enough pop appeal to walk topside with the big boys.
But the question always loomed, “How much of that cred is counterfeit?
“Could The Dandy Warhols make it without an endless supply of major label dollars at its disposal?”
As Earth To The Dandy Warhols spins, it can only be said that the verdict is still out. Clearly relishing being off a major label leash, there is a conspicuous absence of anything even approximating a hit single in the vein of “We Used To Be Friends,” “Bohemian Like You” and “All The Money or The Simple Life Honey." Instead the band builds a vibe from the more static tones that have always been present on past records but were usually broken up by a few hookier numbers designed to assuage the money. Now layered with a host of atmospherics, Taylor-Taylor all but vanishes in the mixes of songs like “Wasp In The Lotus,” “And Then I Dreamt Of Yes,” “Love Song” and “Beast Of All Saints,” and unfortunately those songs that don’t fall into that pit are generally hookless (see “Talk Radio,” “Welcome To The Third World” and “Now You Love Me”) and ooey-gooey bad.
On one side of the coin, Earth To The Dandy Warhols may simply be a transitional record for The Dandy Warhols as they re-acclimate themselves to their new circumstances outside the machine before they move forward. On the other, it may represent what the band is moving to: a grotesquely opulent, self-indulgent and formless mass. If that’s the case, the album is proof that what a lot of the band’s detractors over the years have said is true: The Dandy Warhols need both a strong-handed producer and major label hype as much as said label needs the Dandys for a little extra revenue.
Earth To The Dandy Warhols is available for digital purchase at www.dandywarhols.com and will be released on a physical format this fall.
For more information visit myspace.com/thedandywarhols
