Search - Pussy Galore :: Dial M for Motherf

An incredible album from a bunch of terrible musicians

06/03/1998

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The general consensus about Pussy Galore is that they were an idea that was better in concept than in practice and that they had cool song titles. How very wrong. Dial M, their masterpiece, proves how wrong people (critics and musicians) can be. It is a brilliant, beautiful and ubelievably awful album all at once. Alot of critics accused The Stooges of sounding like a band that didn't know how to play their instruments. Pussy Galore makes Iggy and Co. sound like [insert your favorite classical composer]. And that is what is great about Dial M and Pussy Galore. They sound like the origins of rock'n'roll: primal, raw, and noisy. Through the entire album resides a tumultuous heartbeat that links together the crash and burn (and crash again) guitar work. And Jon Spencer's bellows his Elvis-on-speed vocals as if they are a rallying cry, which they are. It may be rough, it may be even painful to listen to at times, but it is undeniably honest. That is why Dial M is so great. Oh yeah, it has cool titles too."

Rated PG for Pretty Good

Kathy Fennessy | 12/04/2001

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The title can't have won them many friends with the FCC, but this may just be one of Pussy Galore's more listenable, downright likable releases. The songs are more substantial and the production cleaner (if far from slick). The combination of loud guitars, rattletrap percussion, and growled/shouted vocals hasn't really changed, but there's more depth to the din. Granted, PG are still kicking out the jams sans bass (kind of like Beat Happening's evil twin)--but the sound is fuller, less tinny.



The biggest change, however, is that the lyrics don't seem designed primarily to offend. Sure, there's still plenty of profanity, but it's used more for decoration than as the main ingredient. Spencer and crew seem more committed to getting their freak on (as it were) than to pissing everybody off. That means throwing a little funk into the mix, and "Understand Me" and "Dick Johnson" are particularly successful attempts to bring some groove to the noise. Some of the other tracks fall into the filler category, but there are still more hits than misses.



The end result is that "Dial M for Motherf@#$%er" sounds more like a blueprint for the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion than the Pussy Galore of "Corpse Love," the handy collection of their hard-to-find early material. The fact that Spencer is now handling most of the vocals, which were previously shared with Julia Cafritz (who would soon exit the band) only reinforces that impression."