The Moldy Peaches

The Moldy Peaches were two cracked, charming suburban outcasts who wrote wickedly catchy folk-punk songs that bridged the gap between dadaism and pornography. Their debut caused a minor stir in indie circles, and occasioned the rather amazing sight of a room full of young devotees gleefully yelling out "Who's got the crack?!" The Peaches came together when Kimya Dawson dropped out of college and ran into fellow New Yorker Adam Green; they began writing songs in which they alternated lines that seemed designed mostly to crack each other up. On Moldy Peaches winners such as "Who's Got the Crack?" and "Steak for Chicken" they alternate lines like "I like it when my hair is poofy/I like it when you slip me a roofie" and "Who mistook this steak for chicken?/Who'm I gonna stick my dick in?" (with Dawson taking the latter line at one point). But the album also showed that Dawson and Green -- who usually performed in bunny rabbit and Peter Pan costumes -- were auteurs full of childlike innocence (dig the sweet, tender "Jorge Regula") and a gift for making oddball juvenalia and superb melodies stick.

After a final show on Halloween of 2002, the pair released the odds-and-ends collection Unreleased Cutz and Live Jamz 1994—2002 as well as some solo records, several of which had been recorded while the Peaches were still together. Dawson's three albums sound like the work of a bizarro Bob Dylan, offering funny, heartfelt lyrics about pirates, an evil social worker, and how Kenny G wanted to hump one of her friends. I'm Sorry That Sometimes I'm Mean features the strongest songs (including "Talking Ernest" and "Trump Style"), but because all three albums feature a similar mix of folkie strumming, toy keyboards, funny sound effects, and Dawson's cute, naked rasp, any one'll do nicely.

Green was always the more smut-minded half of the Peaches, and a heavy reliance on shocking lyrics hurt his relatively polished solo debut, which didn't have enough charm or good tunes to compensate for throwaways like "Baby's Gonna Die Tonight" and "Mozzarella Swastikas." The stronger Friends of Mine shows off his promise as a songwriter: The tuneful, well-kempt songs bubble over with swooning string arrangements, pretty melodies, and Green's surprisingly polished crooning. But the real coup is "Jessica," a sweetly comic ode to Jessica Simpson in which Green proves he can be an irreverent weirdo and a sentimental sap at the same time. (CHRISTIAN HOARD)

From 2004's The New Rolling Stone Album Guide