The Yuppie Pricks
Broker's Banquet (2005)
Brian Shultz
The Yuppie Pricks hold a schtick so ridiculously over-the-top, so laughably bizarre, so comically absurd that you can't really help but take notice. With a press release telling of the band's lavish lifestyles and greed-chasing outside endeavors (multimillion stockbroking, sitting heir to a pharmaceutical fortune), the Pricks accomplish, as their headline decrees, "Biafra [listening] to America and [answering] the mandate for conservative punk!" Tongue is shoved so far in cheek, reconstructive oral surgery wouldn't settle this mouth.
The band's sound isn't too hard to pin down. It's catchy punk rock with some serious Dead Kennedys worship going on, and though the sarcasm is way more fleshed out than most bands even attempt to meet halfway, the snotty, very Biafra-like bark shouts over rolling drums, clashing three-chord strums and facetiously thrilled backup vocals, although very done before, will be pretty refreshing in the mind of any even slightly-jaded individual in the present day. The band's subject matter ranges from angel dust gatherings to orally pleasing Governor Schwarzenegger to leaving the living world behind with nothing but wads of monetary accomplishment behind them. The first of such is evidenced in the opener, "Coke Party," which begins with a mocking of Queen's "We Will Rock You," throwing in obvious sniffle noises between the foot stomps before the crescending announcement of "coke party coke party coke party COKE PARTY! (gonna get high, gonna get high!)"
Oh, did I mention this was over-the-top? I ask, because, "Damn It Feels Good To Be A Yuppie," which closes Broker's Banquet, is a rap-ballad about the band's lifestyle, complete with a bridge from a George W. impersonator. Seriously.
The Yuppie Pricks, while musically nothing new, have definitely chosen the appropriate vehicle (not a jewel-encrusted, irony-laden BMW) for their almost superfluous image. Recognition is deserving for effort alone, but hell, the music ain't bad either.