The Dandy Warhols – Rockmaker review

Pop has a very short memory, so The Dandy Warhols’ Bohemian Like You – a global hit in 2001 after being featured on a commercial – might as well be the moon to the playlisters of twenty three years later. The Portland quartet duly maximised the potential of major labeldom after it broke, only to quickly grow bored of it’s constraints, the idea of success being mired in subjectivity.

Since then they’ve continued to use their license to experiment, sometimes to baffling degrees; their last album Tafelmuzik Means More When You’re Alone was three and a half hours long and to all intents the aural definition of whether a tree falling in the woods makes any sound.

Rockmaker is a different beast entirely, singer Courtney Taylor-Taylor stating that the band’s aim was to create the kind of sleazy rock album which would echo the past’s limitless hedonism. In places it’s effective too, Alcohol and Cocainemarijuananicotine making the case whilst Danzig With Myself and Summer of Hate take a grim temperature of a Trump-stained America.

Rockmaker‘s ying and yang comes however via it’s special guests (kind of), as Slash fails to resuscitate the undercooked I’d Like to Help You With Your Problem, whilst Debbie Harry’s cameo on I Will Never Stop Loving You just empasises her ageless midas touch. The Dandy Warhols refuse to make ’em like they used to, an attitude they should be applauded for.

You can read a full review here.