Monkey House - Big Money: Singles, Remasters, Rarities, 1992-2005 (2005)

Canadian Import

Monkey House is a Canadian group that is the brainchild of Don Breithaupt, who writes, sings, produces, arranges, and plays keyboards. There's a definite West Coast/AOR sound here; Breithaupt literally wrote the book on Steely Dan and has said "I've been a Steely Dan freak since I was 12 years old. That stuff is my religion." That influence is clearly evident here. Still, it's hardly derivative - what we've got here is a fantastic, highly melodic pop music played by real musicians. Many of the songs are taken from Monkey House's two previous albums: Welcome To The Club (1992) and True Winter (2000) which haven't yet made their way to my collection, but I'm efforting. Highly recommended.

Peak on the US Billboard Top 200 chart: Did not chart

Tracks:  I started to list my favorite tracks and found myself just copying down the titles of all 17 tracks. 16 of the tracks were written or co-written by Breithaupt, the other tune is a Donald Fagen tune from The Nightfly era titled Lazy Nina.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD:  After seeing this album advertised on a random Facebook ad in 2008, I wisely took a chance and purchased this disc in December of that year. Since that time, it has never been far from one of my CD players while the ripped files have taken up permanent residence in my phone. The CD quickly went out of print, so like I always say: buy 'em when you see 'em cause you just never know how long they'll be available.