Jan & Dean

This seems like an improbable combination, an album built around car songs combined with an album of music intended for a vocal duo re-arranged for orchestra. And parts of it are uneven, to be sure, especially the relatively weak "Drag Strip Girl" -- most of it, however, is a lot of fun, and not just the obvious cuts such as the hit "Drag City," or their delightful cover of "Little Deuce Coup." The duo was already experimenting in the studio when they cut Drag City, and it's not a huge jump from "Dead Man's Curve," with its 18 layers of overdubbed vocals, to the orchestral excursions of Jan & Dean's Pop Symphony No. 1. Their musical dexterity isn't quite a match for the lyrical conceits of numbers like "Hot Stocker," but the orchestral album also proves that they had more to offer than car instrumentals such as "Sting Ray." One can only marvel at the reinterpretation of "Little Old Lady From Pasadena" as a Viennese waltz, or "Surf City" arranged for pizzicato strings, and the myriad unexpected shapes given most of the material on the "Pop Symphony" album. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi