Are a Drag

Are a Drag
Studio album by Me First and the Gimme Gimmes
Released May 18, 1999
Genre Punk rock
Length 25:58
Label Fat Wreck Chords
FAT-586
Producer Ryan Greene, Me First and the Gimme Gimmes
Me First and the Gimme Gimmes chronology
Have a Ball
(1997)		 Are a Drag
(1999)		 Turn Japanese
(2001)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic[1]

Are a Drag is the second album by Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, released in 1999 on the Fat Wreck Chords independent record label.

The album is made up mainly of show tunes. The album's title alludes to the fact that most of the songs on the album feature vocalist Spike Slawson singing songs that were originally performed by female characters in their original stage shows/movies (with the exception of the Phantom's part in "Phantom of the Opera", "Science Fiction," which was sung by a female traditionally, but more popularly by Richard O'Brien in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and "Rainbow Connection").

The album's cover features the members of the band dressed up, in drag, as five characters from the musicals represented in song: a member of A Chorus Line ("What I Did For Love"), Annie Mudge from Annie ("Tomorrow"), Dorothy Gale from The Wizard of Oz ("Over the Rainbow"), Sandy Dumbrowski from Grease ("It's Raining on Prom Night"), and Dr. Frank-N-Furter from The Rocky Horror Show ("Science Fiction/Double Feature").

Like many other Gimme Gimmes albums, Are a Drag contains many elements of mash-up - more specifically, musical allusions to punk or power-pop songs in their covers, which are rarely "punk" or "power-pop" or "proto-punk." The intro to the song "My Favorite Things" quotes "Generator", by Bad Religion, and at the end of "Tomorrow", Fat Mike can be heard singing "Mommy's alright, daddy's alright, they just seem a little weird" - a lyric from "Surrender" by Cheap Trick.

Track listing

No. TitleLyricsMusicMusical Length
1. "Over the Rainbow"  E. Y. HarburgHarold ArlenThe Wizard of Oz 1:32
2. "Don't Cry for Me Argentina"  Tim RiceAndrew Lloyd WebberEvita 2:29
3. "Science Fiction/Double Feature"  Richard O'BrienO'BrienThe Rocky Horror Show 2:34
4. "Summertime"  DuBose Heyward, Dorothy Heyward, Ira GershwinGeorge GershwinPorgy and Bess 2:10
5. "My Favorite Things" (contains an interpolation of "Generator" by Bad Religion, written by Brett Gurewitz)Oscar Hammerstein IIRichard RodgersThe Sound of Music 1:52
6. "Rainbow Connection"  Paul Williams, Kenneth AscherWilliams, AscherThe Muppet Movie 2:18
7. "Phantom of the Opera"  Charles Hart, Richard Stilgoe, Mike BattAndrew Lloyd WebberThe Phantom of the Opera 1:45
8. "I Sing the Body Electric"  Dean PitchfordMichael GoreFame 1:44
9. "It's Raining on Prom Night"  Jim Jacobs, Warren CaseyJacobs, CaseyGrease 2:57
10. "Tomorrow" (contains an interpolation of "Surrender" by Cheap Trick, written by Rick Nielsen)Martin CharninCharles StrouseAnnie 1:31
11. "What I Did for Love"  Edward KlebanMarvin HamlischA Chorus Line 1:46
12. "Cabaret"  Fred EbbJohn KanderCabaret 3:24

Band

Additional musicians

See also

References

  1. ↑ Allmusic review


This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Friday, October 16, 2015. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.