''Here's Willy Moon'' is the only
studio album
An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...
by New Zealand singer,
Willy Moon. The album was released in the United States through
Interscope Records
Interscope Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group through its Interscope Geffen A&M imprint. Founded in late 1990 by Jimmy Iovine and Ted Field as a $20 million joint venture with Atlantic Records of Warner Mus ...
on 9 April 2013. The album fused various genres together, with elements of
rock and roll,
indie pop,
noise pop and
alternative dance
Alternative dance (also known as indie dance or underground dance in the U.S.) is a musical genre that mixes alternative rock with electronic dance music. Although largely confined to the British Isles, it has gained American and worldwide expos ...
. ''Here's Willy Moon'' garnered positive reviews from critics and spawned two
single
Single may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
* Single (music), a song release
Songs
* "Single" (Natasha Bedingfield song), 2004
* "Single" (New Kids on the Block and Ne-Yo song), 2008
* "Single" (William Wei song), 2016
* "Single", by ...
s: "
Railroad Track" and "
Yeah Yeah".
Singles
The album's first single, "Railroad Track", was released on 20 August 2012. The album's second single, "Yeah Yeah", was released on 10 September 2012. The song samples
Wu-Tang Clan's 1993 song "Wu-Tang Clan Ain't Nuthing ta Fuck Wit" from the rap group's debut album ''
Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)''. It was featured in Apple's iPod commercial in late 2012 and peaked at number 26 in the UK charts and number 18 on the
''Billboard'''s
Hot Rock Songs chart. Other singles did not chart, but have featured on TV commercials ('I Wanna Be Your Man', 'What I Want', and 'Working for the Company') and video game soundtracks ('Railroad Track').
Critical reception
''Here's Willy Moon'' received generally favourable reviews from most music critics. At
Metacritic, which assigns a
normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an
average score of 68, based on 12 reviews.
Hugo Montgomery of ''
The Independent'' wrote about the album overall: "It's gimmicky, sure, but also pretty irresistible: his rasping vocals hit all the right louche notes, and the sub-three-minute tunes have a short, sharp impact that justifies the support he's received from
Jack White."
AllMusic's
Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Stephen Thomas Erlewine (; born June 18, 1973) is an American music critic and senior editor for the online music database AllMusic. He is the author of many artist biographies and record reviews for AllMusic, as well as a freelance writer, occ ...
called the album "all gaudy glitz, a cheerful pantomime for an audience that may not even exist, as it's hard to discern what generation would swoon for these swinging, corny retro novelties", but later wrote about its appeal by concluding that "this is music that is out there, it is not cooked up by consultants and marketers, it's a truly, genuinely strange attempt at something new -- it may miss its mark but that's why it's fascinating. Plus, it's got a good beat and you can dance to it."
Michael Hann of ''
The Guardian'' commented on the record being a time machine to the '80s with its "rockabilly/technology fusion": "''Here's Willy Moon'' sounds far less like a fusion of
Elvis and urban than it does
Sigue Sigue Sputnik and
Westworld, who had exactly the same idea nearly 30 years ago."
Commercial performance
''Here's Willy Moon'' has sold 5,000 copies in the
United States as of March 2015.
Track listing
References
{{Authority control
2013 debut albums
Interscope Records albums
Island Records albums
Willy Moon albums