Are a Drag

Infobox Album |
Name = Are a Drag
Type = Cover album
Artist = Me First and the Gimme Gimmes


Released = 18 May, 1999
Recorded = ?
Genre = Punk rock
Length = 25:58
Label = Fat Wreck Chords
FAT-586
Producer = Ryan Greene & Me First and the Gimme Gimmes
Reviews =
* Allmusic Rating|4|5 [http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:xe2ibkh90akv~T1 link]
Last album = "Have a Ball"
(1997)
This album = "Are a Drag"
(1999)
Next album = "Turn Japanese"
(2001)

"Are a Drag" is the second album by Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, released in 1999 on the Fat Wreck Chords independent record label.

The album is made up mainly of show tunes. The album's title alludes to the fact that most of the songs on the album feature vocalist Spike Slawson singing songs that were originally performed by female characters in their original stage shows/movies (with the exception of the Phantom's part in "Phantom of the Opera", Richard O'Brien's female-sounding falsetto in "Science Fiction," and "Rainbow Connection"). The album's cover features the members of the band dressed up, in drag, as five of those female characters: Usherette Trixie ("Science Fiction/Double Feature"), Annie Mudge ("Tomorrow"), Dorothy Gale ("Over the Rainbow"), Sandy Dumbrowski ("It's Raining on Prom Night"), and Dr. Frank-N-Furter ("Science Fiction/Double Feature").

Like many other Gimme Gimmes albums, "Are a Drag" contains many elements of mash-up - more specifically, musical allusions to punk or power-pop songs in their covers, which are rarely "punk" or "power-pop" or "proto-punk." The intro to the song "My Favorite Things" quotes "Generator", by Bad Religion, and at the end of "Tomorrow", Fat Mike can be heard singing "Mommy's alright, daddy's alright, they just seem a little weird" - a lyric from "Surrender" by Cheap Trick.

Track listing

# "Over The Rainbow" (Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg, from "The Wizard of Oz")
# "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" (Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, from "Evita")
# "Science Fiction Double Feature" (Richard O'Brien, from "The Rocky Horror Show")
# "Summertime" (George Gershwin, from "Porgy and Bess")
# "My Favorite Things" (Oscar Hammerstein II and Richard Rodgers, from "The Sound of Music")
# "Rainbow Connection" (Paul Williams and Kenneth Ascher, from "The Muppet Movie")
# "Phantom of the Opera" (Andrew Lloyd Webber, from "The Phantom of the Opera")
# "I Sing the Body Electric" (Stephen Margoshes and Jacques Levy, from "Fame")
# "It's Raining on Prom Night" (Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey, from "Grease")
# "Tomorrow" (Charles Strouse, from "Annie")
# "What I Did for Love" (Marvin Hamlisch and Edward Kleban, from "A Chorus Line")
# "Cabaret" (Fred Ebb and John Kander, from "Cabaret")