The Dandy Warhols Album Recommendations: "Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia"

Album Reviews

The old five-point scale has been retired in favor of just rating stuff 1-10, which allows me a much more nuanced final rating. Still don't take it that seriously. Most of these come from my own collection, so the grades skew rather high. Your results may vary if you send me stuff to review.

Each album is given three Essential tracks, my personal favorites, regardless of how weird and inconsequential they are. The Quintessential pick is the one I think best represents the album as a whole, so you can try one song instead of a whole album of songs. Non-Essential picks range from merely disappointing to outright unlistenable.

The Dandy Warhols

[#] Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia (2000)

Tales from Slabtown.

Reviewed January 19, 2026

Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia album art

Generally considered the Dandys' best album, Thirteen Tales is on the surface a sharp detour into rootsy Americana. Those of us more experienced know that's not quite true—they've been noodly cowboys since "Just Try", and the songs alternate wandering ballads and snotty Stonesian groove-ups like virtually every other record they've made. Still, the e-bows and trumpets that carry the achy opener "Godless" on the breeze signal a conscious shift in sound, a solid piece built to be, in their words, "the last classic rock album" in defiance of the nu-rock butt metal excesses of its time (though "Shakin'" still throws in some cheeky record scratches, because it was 2000).

Most of Thirteen Tales' best moments float around the middle of the record. "Horse Pills" and "Bohemian Like You" are as quintessentially Dandy, catchy image-conscious riffmongering, while the hugest tune here, "Get Off", is the post-nut clarity after the high noon orgy. "Godless" and "Sleep" show their drifty poignant emotional side only enhanced by the twang. These tracks work the best—when the group lean into the country LARP a la "Country Leaver", they just sound awkward and goofy (were the barn animal noises really necessary?). I don't quite agree with the assessment this is their best, but it's certainly the one with the greatest density of great singalongs, and that's just as well.

Essential:	"Godless", "Get Off", "Sleep"
Quintessential:	"Cool Scene"
Non-Essential:	"Country Leaver"
Rating: