Welcome to the Monkey House

The album was originally mixed by Grammy Award-winning soul engineer Russell Elevado, but Capitol Records, the band’s label at the time, were unhappy with releasing it, and it was shelved, contrary to the band’s wishes. The released version is instead a more polished, synthpop-influenced mix by Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran. The Elevado mix was released as The Dandy Warhols Are Sound in 2009.

The album is partly named after Kurt Vonnegut’s short story of the same name.

The album cover painting is by Ron English and is a prime example of that artist’s 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 by one of English’s acknowledged major influences, Andy Warhol: The Rolling Stones’ Sticky Fingers and The Velvet Underground’s The Velvet Underground & Nico.

he 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, Welcome to the Monkey House, 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”.