ALBUM RECOMMENDATIONS |

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The old five-point scale has been retired in favor of just rating stuff 1-10, which allows me a much more nuanced final rating. Still don't take it that seriously. Most of these come from my own collection, so the grades skew rather high. Your results may vary if you send me stuff to review.

Each album is given three Essential tracks, my personal favorites, regardless of how weird and inconsequential they are. The Quintessential pick is the one I think best represents the album as a whole, so you can try one song instead of a whole album of songs. Non-Essential picks range from merely disappointing to outright unlistenable.

The Dandy Warhols

[#] Dandys Rule OK (1995)

Reviewed January 5, 2026

A massive concussion of rock and roll.

The Portland-based Dandy Warhols have always occupied a challenging space in the rock continuum. It's not so much for their on-paper-simple-to-understand sozzled slurry of jubilant power pop, shoegaze sonics with just a hint of sitar, varying electropop flavoring, vulnerable acoustic introspection and a deep, music nerd working knowledge and catalog of covers of everyone from Blondie to Gordon Lightfoot to AC/DC to CSNY. It's more so their uncompromising flights of fancy, experimental to the pop crowd and what the hipster crowd felt was a hipster joke they weren't invited in on.

Never mind that. Whether the Dandys butter your muffin or not, their debut is undeniably all theirs. It's not often a group hits on all their career's sonic hallmarks right at the start, but Dandys Rule OK does it. You get the rollicking pop rock in their TV theme song transitioning into a handful of artist pastiches (ranging from the fuzz-toned "Ride" being worthy of any drive playlist to "Lou Weed" being worthy of, I dunno, a walk on the mild side?), folky acoustic navelgazing, and an over sixteen minute "Sister Ray" homage to cap things off. Perhaps the most quintessential Dandys album, start here to see if these guys do it for you like they do it for me.

Essential:	Quintessential:	Non-Essential:	Rating:
"Ride", "Best Friend", "Genius"	"Nothin' to Do"	"(Tony, This Song is Called) Lou Weed"

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