American Standard by Mary's Danish

American Standard was the last word from Mary's Danish, the Los Angeles outfit fronted by two singers, Gretchen Seager and Julie Ritter, who mixed rock with funk, country and soul. For the 1992 record they rented a loft in Central Los Angeles just to jam, and all six members had a hand in the writing. Peter Asher, who was also managing them, produced most of it, with Niko Bolas engineering and helping out, and the whole thing was cut in 10 days at Skywalker Sound.

It's a record with a few axes to grind: "God Said" goes after the televangelist racket, "Porcupine" takes a swipe at people who wall themselves off from the world, and "Gotcha Covered" is a portrait of LA living. Hidden on the record is an unlisted cover of "I Fought the Law" with Chad Smith sitting in on drums. "Leave It Alone" reached number 20 on Billboard's Modern Rock chart.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.