The Dandy Warhols – TheCapitol Years 1995–2007

Thu 8th Jul, 2010 in Music Reviews

The Dandy Warhols are fine purveyors of a wide variety of rock, stretching from psychedelic to garage and acoustic to punk. Their compilation album, The Capitol Years 1995–2007, is a great testament to the band’s ability to write fantastic songs. At the same time, a cynic could say that it also shows their inability to produce a truly great album. Nonetheless, this is a great collection of fun songs.

The compilation features the American rockers most popular songs, lifted from all their albums save for two: their debut, Dandys Rule, OK? and their most recent effort, Earth to the Dandy Warhols (neither were released on Capitol).

Opening with the familiar riff of Boys Better from their second album, …The Dandy Warhols Come Down, the scene is set for a cracking set of songs. This promise is delivered through standouts Not If You Were The Last Junkie On Earth, Bohemian Like You, All The Money or The Simple Life Honey, We Used To Be Friends and Every Day Should Be A Holiday.

Many of the versions here are different to those found on the original albums. The Every Day Should Be A Holiday found here is the Tony Lash mix; Scientist and Plan A are pulled from The Dandy Warhols Are Sound (which is the alternate mix of Welcome to the Monkey House ).

In addition to the alternate mixes, there is one new song, This Is The Tide. Essentially, it’s a typical Dandy Warhols song on cruise control: the real appeal of this album is in the previously released and well-known songs.

The high points of the album can be more or less observed from reading the track listing. Zia McCabe’s synth introduces the undeniably catchy Bohemian Like You, which sounds as awesome as ever. Not If You Were The Last Junkie On Earth has that chorus of ‘heroin is so passe’ and catches the full band’s glory, much like the climax of All The Money Or The Simple Life Honey with Courtney Taylor-Taylor’s interjecting calls of delight.

Subtler highlights include the shoegaze-y Good Morning, the last single to be released from ...Come Down. There are some disappointments such as the inferior mix of Every Day Should Be A Holiday .

This collection showcases the best moments of this vastly talented and popular band. And while some of these songs are ten years old, it just goes to show that a great song will always be a great song.