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No Virginia | 
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| Artist: Dresden Dolls
Label: Roadrunner
Category: Music
List Price: £9.99
Buy New: £7.87
You Save: £2.12 (21%)
New (25) from £7.87
Avg. Customer Rating:  5 reviews
Sales Rank: 9855
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.1
Dimensions (in): 5.3 x 5 x 0.2
UPC: 016861792657
EAN: 0016861792657
ASIN: B001716IQG
Release Date: May 19, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Tracks:
| » | Dear Jenny | | » | Night Reconnaissance | | » | The Mouse and The Model | | » | Ultima Esperanza | | » | The Gardener | | » | Lonesome Organist Rapes Page-Turner | | » | Sorry Bunch | | » | Pretty In Pink | | » | The Kill | | » | The Sheep Song | | » | Boston |
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| Customer Reviews:
 You Can Never Have Too Much Dresden Dolls! July 4, 2008
48 minutes of glorious Dresden Dolls madness. An excellent selection of songs with intriguing lyrics - the punk cabaret is growing up but it's still there with its tongue firmly in its cheek and a glint in its eye.
A few favourites:
'Dear Jenny' is a new song with the marvellous opening line of, 'Boys wear overcoats in the heat like this to keep themselves from showing..' - when was the last time you heard a song opening with a rationale for wearing a coat?
'The Mouse And The Model' is six minutes of glory for Brian going well overboard with his delicate and wild and careful drumming proving (if it's needed) what a great drummer he is.
'The Gardener' is a strange song, menacing with the threat of 'we will plant brambles in your bed'. It's very atmospheric and spare, showing what good musicians they both are, creating moods and terror with a gentle tap on the keyboard or drum. It ends with the refrain, 'The Gardener's coming to collect...'.
'Lonesome Organist Rapes Page Turner' is one of my long-term favourites, the 'B' side to 'Sing' from 'Yes, Virginia'.
'Pretty In Pink', the Psychedelic Furs classic from the film. It's a great version of the song and I love Amanda's world-weary tone throughout the song.
'Boston' is a trademarked Amanda song, whispering one minute, shouting the next, but with some interesting piano twiddles and seduction lyrics, keeping score for who you've had sex with. "Come back to bed my darling" Amanda croons...
I'm very pleased with this small slice of heaven. They make so much noise for a duo that the noise-demons must have them on the payroll.
 Doubling entendres with the voicings June 7, 2008
Back in May 2006 I reviewed the album Yes, Virginia... by the Dresden Dolls, and I quote myself (after all, nobody else is going to quote me):
"You'll need to keep an open mind for this one, but The Dresden Dolls are the most excitingly different duo that I've come across in ages."
Fast forward to 2008 and here's "No, Virginia..." which isn't technically a new album, because it's made up of left-over tracks from previous albums and B-sides, but it's definitely good enough to qualify for "new" status.
Amanda Palmer is as brilliant as ever with her dark, edgy lyrics, pounding piano and impossible-to karaoke vocal performances. This type of music (punk cabaret) may be an acquired taste, but for originality and audacity it can't be beaten.
The songs that I have been playing from this album are:
"Dear Jenny"- listen for the howling at the end
"Night Reconnaissance", where she observes "Nothing is crueler than children who come from good homes"
"Lonesome Organist R@pes Page-Turner" - not only a naughty name, but witty lyrics such as "So on the bench I watched his left hand crossing / While doubling entendres with the voicings"
"Sorry Bunch" - great piano performance
"Pretty in Pink" - my favorite track. Begins like Dire Straits "Walk of Life", and just gets better
"The Kill" - love the lyrics
"The Sheep Song" - a punk cabaret lullaby
If you know somebody whose musical taste is off-mainstream, you might want to put this on your Christmas list to convince them that Santa Claus is alive and cabaretting.
Amanda Richards
I think this one will be a grower... June 6, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
...but so far it's not there yet.
This is nothing like as coherant as anything else the Dolls have done album-wise, but then that's kind of the point. Cohesiveness of albums is something I have an odd relationship with - sometimes it's vital; Kid A's biggest strength is that it fit's together as a single whole, ( ) by Sigur Ros, equally, I don't see as an album but one single instrumental. Other times I like it when things feel like "collections".
To refer back to Radiohead again, Pablo Honey is great because it effectively a "Best of" album from their early, pre-EMI days.
So I'm sure yet, where this will come into No, Virginia.
I found my attention drift sometimes, when listening to it. Some tracks are brilliant; Lonesome Organist Rapes Page Turner, followed by a cover of Pretty in Pink are fantastic. Other times, you think "This is just more of the same".
Which I suppose is kind of the idea. I think it would have been interesting to see what Yes, Virginia would have been like, had it had different tracks on it - a lot of the tracks on No, Virginia would have worked very well on Yes, Virginia, and I'm quite tempted to make a complilation of "Maybe, Virginia" and see what happens.
return to form June 2, 2008
I have to say, when I heard this album was a collection of b-sides, reworkings and rarities I was skeptical, but I decided to keep my pre order and give it a go......and I have to say i'm in love!!!!!!
In my humble opinion its a return to the glory days of the first album, im not saying yes, virginia was bad, it just seemed to lack something compared to their debut.
My personal favourite Lonesome Organist Rapes Page-Turner (disturbing I know) is a quirky tune in the vein of sex changes from the second album and is definatly the best track as far as im concerned, however the rest of the album is also amazing!
Amandas vocals are perfect and the combination of fast and slow songs with some frantic and some longing is just everything you would expect from the dresden dolls!
Now I just need to find out where I can see them live..........
It's dark here on the flipside of reason May 28, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Welcome back, king and queen of punk cabaret. We missed you and your weird, wild little songs.
Thankfully the Dresden Dolls haven't lost any of their Brechtian flavour or wild devilish energy since their second album "Yes Virginia." And though "No Virginia" is not really an album proper -- it's a string of B-sides, odds and ends -- it's a deliciously dark cacophony of piano, psychiatric catastrophes and sharp drums. It's a bit smoother and less punky than their past work, but still what you'd expect from the Dolls.
Stabs of piano and drums punctuate Amanda Palmer's singing, as she announces, "Ashley talks to astronauts back home by way of fax transmission... weary, oh so drearily we wave our flags into the camera/Amber goes berserk completely, she's been here since last December."
The melody becomes subtler and darker as she announces, "Sometimes they let strangers in and other times they check the records!/When they check out in the morning dad puts out the lie detectors..." That one's about a psychiatric hospital, ya know. Think of it as a sequel to the gloriously mad "Girl Anachronism," but with more dramatic music and a slower beat. And, of course, the girl anachronism is now in a ward with self-harmers, flashers and imaginary astronauts.
And it's followed by the music-hall darkness of "Night Reconnaissance," a wildly weird song about lawn ornaments and social outcasts. But the Dresden Dolls prove that they can do more than that -- hauntingly angular pop music, cascading piano-rockers, weird experimental tunes, mellotron-saturated melodies, and of course the cabaret-flavoured punk music. It ends with the yearning, desperate drama of "Boston," which is all about travel, sex and "forty-five minutes every day religiously devoted to regret."
A lot of these songs have been floating around in one form or another for awhile, whether in compilations, covers, unrecorded music, or B-sides from their wonderful second album. Well, it only really shows in a few places like in the suggestive "Gardener," which is way too whispery and purry to really fit in with the more dramatic and/or bombastic pop.
In fact, the only real problem with "No Virginia..." is that many of these songs rely more on smooth dark cabaret than on punk. Other than that, it's pretty much solid Dolls material -- most of the music rides on the piano, whether it's thumping, rippling, sparkling, smashing or reverberating in the silence. And it's draped in plenty of sharp angular drums and some powerful punky guitars. And in the more experimental songs like "Gardener," the S&M-flavoured lyrics are softened with mellotron and a hint of accordion.
Amanda Palmer's throaty, muscular voice winds through these songs like a gleeful temptress. She happily sings of exaggerations ("I am an amazon/an ampersand/an accident"), outsiders, last hopes, S&M, mental illness, sexy piano teachers, and "alcohol and chemicals." And the lyrics don't hurt -- they drip hints and subtext, but not in such a way that it ruins the fun moments -- and Palmer sings them with her tongue in cheek, and a little shred of longing.
"No Virginia" can be seen as a companion piece to the wonderful "Yes Virginia," but taken on its own merits it's a delightfully dark little trip into the darkened houses and wild nights of the Dresden Dolls.
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