Welcome to the Monkey House (album)

Background and content

The album's title was inspired by Kurt Vonnegut's short story of the same name.

The album cover painting is by Ron English, and is a prime example of his signature mash-up style – the visual pun of a banana half-exposed by a zipper down its peel cannily melds two of the most famous classic rock album cover designs, both by one of English's acknowledged major influences, Andy Warhol: The Rolling Stones' Sticky Fingers and The Velvet Underground's The Velvet Underground & Nico.

Mix

The album was originally mixed by Grammy Award-winning soul music engineer Russell Elevado, but Capitol Records, the band's label at the time, were unhappy with releasing it, and instead released a more polished, synthpop-influenced mix by Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran. In 2009, Dandy Warhols guitarist Peter Holmström claimed it "was not the version I wanted released". The Elevado mix was released as The Dandy Warhols Are Sound on the band's own Beat the World record label in 2009.

Release

Three singles were released from the album: "We Used to Be Friends" on April 23, 2003, "You Were the Last High" on July 28 and "Plan A" on November 24.

Reception

The album was generally well-received critically. XRay Magazine described the album as a "belligerent, snotty-nosed, speed-fueled romp through sinister electro punk, slightly corrupt melodic rock and skew-whiff handle of 80s glam-sodden pop, albeit refracted through a knowing noughties thrift store cool." AllMusic wrote, "With their fifth album [...] the band capitalizes on their pop sensibilities and even manages to turn their prior weaknesses into strengths, resulting in a collection of gloriously blank, cleverly stupid neo-new wave songs." Robert Christgau gave the album an A– rating, calling it "clever and droll but also hypnotic and mysterious".

On the other hand, Pitchfork gave the album a low 3.3/10 rating, writing, "these songs highlight the poseur mentality and insincerity that paradoxically plagues and blesses The Dandy Warhols". Sunday Herald wrote, "Sometimes over-indulgence can be fun, but Welcome to the Monkey House is simply too much."

Track listing

All tracks written by Courtney Taylor-Taylor, except where noted.

The alternate titles listed above are the song titles as printed on the back cover, disc and in the liner notes of non-U.S. editions of the album, apart from "The Last High", which was the credited title of "You Were the Last High" on U.S. pressings (despite maintaining the full title when released as a single).

The enhanced CD contains the short film The End of the Old as We Know It, written and directed by Courtney Taylor-Taylor, and a link to The Odditorium, a no-longer-active website where fans could "see band web casts, play games and download exclusive music and mayhem".