Alive & Amplified by The Mooney Suzuki

Alive & Amplified, the Mooney Suzuki's third album and their second for Columbia, landed in August 2004, with the New York garage rockers trading the sweaty basement for the big room. The Matrix took the controls, and the band cut it around Los Angeles at Paramount, Ameraycan and Decoy studios. Sammy James Jr. and company called the result dense and kaleidoscopic, and there's a thick coat of gloss slathered over the fuzz.

The songs mostly have one thing on their mind: "Primitive Condition", "Shake That Bush Again", "Loose 'n' Juicy" and "Messin' in the Dressin' Room" leer and wink with all the subtlety their titles promise, while "New York Girls" is James's reply to "California Girls", sticking up for the women of the city the band came from. The title track found a long second life away from radio, popping up in a Suzuki Grand Vitara ad, an episode of One Tree Hill, the film Fun with Dick and Jane and a string of video games.

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