★★★★★
Even accepting that, for a schoolboy going to the Fifth Form lunchtime record club - as this reviewer once was - a literal interpretation of White Punks On Dope and an awkward snigger at Don't Touch Me There were rather unsophisticated misunderstandings of The Tubes' 70s heydays, it's still rather disconcerting to revisit the 1985 album where their skewed exuberance broke down in a miasma of AOR...
- recordcollectormag.com
2013-04-02
★★★★★
Like Zappa, Was (Not Was), or Steely Dan, the Tubes lived at the place where chops and jokes converged. At the Tubes' worst, they made inexplicable mini-rock operas called "Poland Whole/Madam I'm Adam". At their best, though, it was impossible to tell where the chops ended and the jokes began. When you hear a vivid acoustic guitar solo jump from the mix during their lovely shuffle "Brighter Day", even the record's engineers seem in on the joke...
- www.popmatters.com
2012-06-25
★★★★★
Top rock satires are thin on the ground, so Fee Waybill's inventive mothers seemed ahead of schedule in 1975. The Tubes' debut and the Young & Rich album don't sound so ground-breakingly funny now but their musical trickery stands up well. The gorgeous "Up From The Deep" and the game-show sleaze of "What Do You Want From Life?" are highly hummable, whereas Waybill's Quay Lewd persona is too rocky horror yuck yuck for most mainstream tastes...
- www.uncut.co.uk
2010-06-19
★★★★★
San Franciscan rock satirists The Tubes actually pulled in some heavyweight support as they camped out in '70s America. Drawing a fan club that included Captain Beefheart, Larry Graham, Stanley "Acid Lab Rat" Owsley III, and Frank Zappa, this theatrical circus version of Steely Dan didn't equal the successes of their "White Punks On Dope" again...
- www.uncut.co.uk
2010-06-19
★★★★★
Their knack for songwriting always surprises me, because they deserve worse, and on this album they provide it, drenching their material in the grandiose harmonies and pomprock keyboard textures that thrive in the Midwest, where many poor souls still regard these transparent cynics as avatars of the new wave. You think maybe Patti Smith would do "No Mercy"?
- www.robertchristgau.com
2009-07-17
★★★★★
Since it's my instinct to detest this group, I was dismayed to catch myself chuckling at "Tubes World Tour," "Slipped My Disco," and even "Proud to Be an American." I was even more astonished to conclude that "Pimp" might be serious. Further investigation turned up no additional satisfactions, but revealed a movement away from Al Kooper's general parody of the hard and the heavy toward a more eclectic satirical style reminiscent of (they should be so funny) Stan Freberg.
- www.robertchristgau.com
2009-07-17
★★★★★
Encouraged by "a black friend" (Uncle Remus?) to "let this r&b music out," these soulful California cats did their professional best to simulate a Journey album...
- www.robertchristgau.com
2009-07-17
★★★★★
The Tubes seem to be a theater group that parodies rock & roll and its associated social conventions of the last five years. There are witless sendups of Bowie ("Space Baby"), Chicago ("Haloes") and heavy metal ("White Punks on Dope") as well as an expressed fondness for the revival of that ancient fad, sadomasochism ("Mondo Bondage").Why anyone would be interested in recorded parodies of musical and social themes too recent to have any innate camp appeal doesn't concern the Tubes...
- www.rollingstone.com
2009-06-08
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