Like boxed wine, Boxed Wine’s Cheap, Fun is cheap fun. Thank you, thank you. I'll be here all day. 

Cheap, Fun is one of the most infectious albums I’ve listened to in a while, but it’s not even 30 minutes long. My initial theory is that a good part of its infectiousness comes from the fact that it’s short and sweet; it’s hard to imagine this album being any longer. It’s a classic catch-22; right now, I doubt Cheap, Fun will have a significant, lasting impact on me, but it is damn fun to listen to for the same reasons. 

I’m going to illustrate the power of this album, but in order to do so you’re going to have to bear with me as I describe a series of events that may or may not have much to do with the actual album. But I promise you, I’ll get there. I happened to listen to Cheap, Fun as I was making the 5-hour drive from Buffalo to the Adirondacks. I started listening immediately after I left my apartment and it was over before I’d reached the Darien Lake exit, so I thought “Well shit, now what.” I started it over, and it finished as I was somewhere between Batavia and Rochester. It was decent but unremarkable and I really didn’t know what to think other than a lot of the songs sound like Vampire Weekend with less bongo drums and privilege and tribal chants. I switched to Donna the Buffalo and was going to let them take me the rest of the way.

A few hours later, as expected, I grew a little tired of DTB’s rootsy, folk-jams so I put Cheap, Fun back on. Talk about a band thriving in the right context; to understand how much fun this album is to listen to, you may have to listen to the polar opposite for a few hours beforehand. I found myself pushing 60 along tight country roads until I had to slow down just in time to squeeze by an approaching horse and buggy (As a quick aside, it’s not fun when an Amish gentleman stares you down. It really isn’t). That’s when I decided that these guys will get me going. Not get me going as in tapping my left foot while holding a tall boy of PBR; get me going as in aggressively trying to do some kind of shoulder-heavy jump-shuffle. 

The first ten seconds of the fifth song, “Spies,” sounds like it could be the beginning of any number of songs on Vampire Weekend’s debut album. The difference is Vampire Weekend was content with being cute and playful on their debut album – with the possible exception of the frenetic “A-Punk,” although even that song has a few spells of mystical flute-playing – while Cheap, Fun is just an unabashed dance party. Highlights of the album include the second song “Cannibal” and the 8^th track “Overboard.” You’ll hear nothing groundbreaking on either song, but if they were going for groundbreaking they wouldn’t have named their album Cheap, Fun.

To be sure, there is a time and place for albums like Cheap, Fun. Excuse my repeat, obvious comparison to boxed wine, but just as there has never been a beverage invented so exclusively for getting you fucked up, this is an album recorded exclusively for getting you up off your seat. Just as you don’t purchase boxed wine to sip, swirl and spit, you don’t listen to Boxed Wine to impress people. You drink and listen to both for the fun, and if you can accept that about yourself, you’ll be okay.