Viagra Boys
viagr aboys
SHRIMPTECH ENTERPRISES
Pop quiz: Are the following lyrics from a Viagra Boys song or a “Weird” Al Yankovic parody of a Viagra Boys song?: “I found a crouton underneath the futon / Momma said I couldn’t eat it, because all my teeth are gone / My personality is based on food now.” Given that you’re reading a review of the new Viagra Boys album, you must know the answer—but admit it, you had to pause for a minute before deciding, right? It’s not a slam to compare the V. Boys to this sort of throwaway humor, because the Swedish post-punks get their kicks out of entertaining listeners in the tradition of the Beastie Boys, Electric Six, and Turbonegro.
Their fourth album, viagr aboys, combines half-assed humor with half-assed performances. But there’s a conspicuous absence of guitar-centric punk, leaving a vacancy filled instead by demented synth tinkering (“Pyramid of Health”) and enough obscene lyrics to supply the next edition of Cards Against Humanity (“If you get high on nostalgia, you should get checked for chlamydia,” Sebastian Murphy sings on a track possibly named for a Happy Madison movie). It’s a little disappointing when six skilled musicians join forces to make a record that’s 10 times more scatological than it is intellectual—with seven other collaborators helping to refine it—especially when the antithesis of refinement is really what’s at play here.
Give credit where credit is, I suppose, due. All 11 schlocky songs are catchy, danceable, and, so long as your tastes aren’t too sensitive, fun. Ween succeeded and the Bloodhound Gang failed in essentially the same respect. Viagra Boys have a devoted following. They’ve also performed at Coachella and Glastonbury, opened for Queens of the Stone Age, and, most important of all, openly railed against QAnon, racism, and homophobia in their music (on 2022’s Cave World in particular). At a time when the world isn't divided between left and right but instead between people of character and those who lack it, Viagra Boys deserve respect. That still stands even if they deliberately set out to make music that surely they themselves would admit is silly and not intended to appeal to everyone. Now imagine living in that kind of a world.
