…The Dandy Warhols Come Down

Good but not great. The songs all do pretty much the same thing sound-wise, and while it's *fine* it does make it feel like a bit of a slog to make it to the end.

Mr Come Down, so pleased to see you again.

I could write so much about this album, and the band. It was nothing short of revelatory when I first heard it, aged 17. It was the antidote to both tedious Britpop and increasingly middle-of-the-road American rock, existing somewhere in a swirling bongwater ether of the Velvet Underground and Rolling Stones, but also taking in influences from shoegaze and stoner rock, with a snide, cool, and nihilistic attitude.

Come Down was at once deeply uncool and the coolest thing I'd ever heard, and I just couldn't understand why more people didn't like them. I saw them live a lot. I got the t-shirt. I wrote an essay about them at university. I got a tattoo. I was obsessed.

I still think it hangs together as an album, and it needs to be listened to as loud as possible. "Be In" builds layer upon layer, "Boys Better" smacks you with one of the short, sharp catchy pop songs that the Dandys do really fucking well, then the pace slows and it gets into this soporific sludge, in the best possible way, before hitting the double-whammy of "Junkie" and "Holiday," and then "Good Morning" is a come down from that burst of energy and a return to the more stoned fug of the first half.
It's by far their best album and I wish they'd continued on this track and not tried to go all electronic.

So yeah, five stars, always and forever.

I love bohemian like you, but it's not in this. Good vibes, enjoyed the sound, but the slow songs were kind of a drag 4*
Highlights: every day should be a holiday

...The Dandy Warhols Come Down is such a weird, wacky and wonderful album. I initially came into this album thinking that it was just going to be a standard alt-rock album (which i still would have been fine with) but as it went on, it started introducing more and more crazy elements that really added to this album's individuality. The vocals were great here to ranging from regular alt-rock vocals to a much more quiet vocal style which i would have found many reasons to criticize if the album didn't handle these vocals so well but it ended up doing just that. Many of these aspects made this 66 minute long album more than worth my time.
Best Song: Hard On For Jesus
Worst Song: Pete International Airport

I like it!

I had this CD in high school/college and I played it a lot. And the reason I played it a lot is because it's really good. It's been a few years since I listened to it all the way through, which is a shame. Is it a 5 star? No, not quite, but it's pretty close.

Never really fully got the hype around these guys. It's solid enough power pop but doesn't blow me away or anything. I don't think it's terribly notable.

Heavy turn of the millennium nostalgia vibes for me on this. Probably makes me like it more than I would otherwise. Nice record to blast first thing in the morning.

I've heard an album by this band before (the one after this, the one with the big hit on it) and I'm a bit surprised this one made it in over that as that one was more successful and gets more plaudits.

This is American Britpop, and this is the only American band I've heard that goes for this kind of sound. They obviously took a lot of inspiration from bands like Spiritualized and The Verve, because it sounds exactly like them. I'm ambivalent, like The Verve and Spiritualised when they're good they're good but many of the songs are more drawn out than they need to be, and the album ends up being far too long as a result.

Ik ken deze lui van het wat creatievere radio-hitje. De radio-rock sfeer zit er bij zit album al behoorlijk in. Vooral de zang is niet zo opvallend of creatief als het hitje, maar de muziek voelt wel aardig geproduceerd. Het is een album dat me niet zo prikkelt. Niet negatief en niet positief.

A bit derivative, but fun to listen to. Cool to see that they opened for Bowie on his Reality tour. Favorite tracks: Be-In, Not If You Were the Last Junkie on Earth, Every Day Should Be a Holiday.

Generally, this was a good album. I really liked the songs that were a bit more atmospheric and ambient in nature. The song "Last Junkie" was AWFUL and dragged the album down a bit. That and the run time was about 20 mins too long. 3/5

I’m at a 3.5 that I’ll bump up to a 4.

It’s a solid album. It’s certainly worth being on the list. It’s just not a great album experience, or at least one that’s not as cohesive as it could’ve been.

This album has two distinct issues for me – they’re not big issues, but they’re enough to really mess with the flow of the album. The first involves the pacing – some of these tracks wander on a bit too long in their instrumentals, and they sort of dissipate the vocal moments in favor of letting the instrumentals shine. It’s not a bad approach, but it makes the album run much longer than it needs to. This is 66 minutes that could’ve been trimmed down.

The other issue is simply finding a more proper balance between vocal presence and the instrumentals themselves – there are really good tracks here, but some of them have the vocals get drowned out by the instrumentals so much that the vocals don’t have any presence on them, or at least, not as much as they should. When this album finds the right balance between the two (see: I Love You & Whipping Tree), it hits really well and completely nails what it’s going for. It just doesn’t strike on it as much as I’d like.

Regardless, I still thought this was pretty good – there’s a few tracks that aren’t as captivating as others, but this is just a really good blend of a lot of 90s stuff – sort of a “Pearl Jam meets indie rock” with a bit of Britpop influence as well. It’s a strong album, but it’s dragged down by its track length, its pacing, and arguably its track order – closing out on 15 minutes of instrumentals without one big encore payoff is a little too bold for my tastes. There’s a few tracks that feel too similar, too close to one another. Either way, I liked it. It’s a 3.5 that I’ll bump up to a 4 because I enjoyed it enough.

I really enjoyed this, it was more adventurous than I expected

Middle of the road average late 90s US rock.

This is perhaps the most Britpop-y, unabashedly stereotypical 90s alternative rock albums to come out of a band from the US of A. That doesn't mean it's all bad, there's some fun rocking jams with a level of pride that has just enough quality to not come off entirely as cockiness. However, I think you'll struggle to find a record with more clichés. Too long? Check. Distortion guitars? Check. Singer with unique yet bland vocals? Check. Way too long outro to "feel something?" Check. It's all just very run of the mill, with hints of something greater bubbling underneath. It kept me intrigued over the four or so days it took me to get through it, but I can't imagine sitting down and calling this an all time great, and I am 100% sure Robert Dimery put this album in the 1001 Albums book just because it sounded vaguely britpop-y and extremely 90s. That's his favorite.

Not the album with "Bohemian Like You"! I generally liked the more uptempo songs than the slower ones. "Every Day Should Be A Holiday" sounds like it could have been made by a bunch of baggy trousered Mancs.

Perhaps an underrated album. This band is certainly polarizing, but I did enjoy it for the most part. 3.5/5

Yet another ex-1001 album!™
http://1001albumsyoumusthearbeforeyoudie.wikidot.com/album-artists-a-z-ex

Not If You Were the Last Junkie on Earth still hits the nostalgia notes! The rest of the album is fine, a bit wishy washy... but yeah, I agree: Every Day Should Be a Holiday!

Taas kerran liian pitkä levy -- oliks tää joku ysärijuttu että kun voi niin tehdään tunnin levyjä ilman sen suurempaa syytä? Eipä siinä, ihan hyviä biisejä joukossa ja eiköhän sen takia kolmoseen nouse, vaikka olis voinu olla enemmän garageakin.