4 posts tagged “comedy”
I'm real tired right now, and I haven't posted an mp3 for the day, so here we go! I've always dug this track (it's not really a song in the straight definition of the word, but if that matters to you, you suck) -- it's just so goofy and quotable. Granted, the bulk of the lyrics are variations on "HEY FAT BOY! ASSHOLE! C'MERE! YOU KILLED MY MOTHER! I KILL YOU!!", but when do those words NOT come in handy, huh? It's from the album Pure Guava, which is a pretty good one, though it took me a bit of warming up to, due to the sound-quality not being the best. But it's still pretty rad, and, hey, it's got a fat boy and threats of murder! What more can you ask for?
ALSO -- I'm not gonig to do it now, because I'm tired, but probably tomorrow, I'm going to go through here and provide Amazon Links to the albums from which you can buy all the tracks. At least the ones that aren't real rare or anything. They'll probably be affiliated up, so either a) You can buy them and I'll get a kickback or b) You can follow the link, add it to your wishlist, then log out and restart your browser or some such and buy the record without giving me a kickback. That's fine too. I do not expect/request/etc. the Amazonian Kickbacks, I just wanna make it so y'all can maybe actually BUY these records which I'm plugging. Because, seriously, they're all pretty damn rad albums and worth the purchase. And, hey, supporting artists is a good thing, because it lets them make more art and not wind up workin' in a gas station.
So, hooray for that!
I've been a Tubes fan for a long time, although I kind of lost interest
with their post-A&M stuff on Capitol. While the early records
were really, really strong, the Capitol stuff ended up having a few
really good tracks and some filler (except for Love Bomb which, to this
day, I've NEVER actually made it through the entire record, which is
kinda sad). This is actually FROM the Capitol era, however, and
from the first (and best) record of that era, The Completion Backward
Principle. I've talked about this album before -- the basic idea
was that Bill Spooner had claimed he'd found a book with that title
that told how to write a top-selling record album (perhaps the KLF's The Manual
-- except that was about a decade late). In actuality, though, he
listened to what was popular on the radio at the time, and worked
backwards to write sound-alikes -- and, oddly enough it worked.
The thing is, while it's a great idea for a record, and a great concept
album (which is what the Tubes basically had done exclusively up to
this point), the problems are twofold:
A) It's really, really dated now.
and
B) Record labels have a tendency to request upon making the
best-selling album of your career and a bonafide hit anyway, that you
do EXACTLY THE SAME THING for any other records you do, as if something
works once, it will obviously work over and over and over again.
So, the next album, Outside Inside, which did have its moments (i.e. "She's a Beauty") didn't have a concept, nor did it particularly expand on the Tubes' identity. The humor was still there (as it's obviously in this cut, which is, like so much of their work, basically a dirty joke in a 3 minute pop song), but the music started to sound forced and phoned in. You could tell Bill Spooner wasn't writing the stuff he wanted to anymore, and was writing stuff to sell records. Which, well, they did for a while, but then the band fizzled out, their sales went down, they fired Bill Spooner from the band, Fee Waybill did a solo record, some acting, and then went on to co-write songs with Richard Marx. Then, the Tubes reformed... minus Bill Spooner, but.. with.. Fee's buddy... Richard Marx. Needless to say, the resulting album, Genius Of America is somehow even LESS successful than Love Bomb. Oi.
But here, check this song out, back from when the Tubes were still at
the top of the slide! It's goofy, and funny -- disposable, sure,
but it was intended to be.
This comes from "Weird Al" Yankovic's brand new record, Straight Outta
Lynwood, which comes out today, actually. This song is one of his
originals (which comes with a pretty grand video on the DVD side of the
DualDisc), and I'm mainly putting it up here because -- well, I'm not
sure, but I THINK it's supposed to be a Sparks style parody. It's
got a lot of the similar sounds and the rapid-fire lyrics, however,
there's not much in the falsetto department, which one would think
would be a hallmark of a Sparks parody -- but perhaps Al thought'd be
too obvious or somethin'. Or maybe it's NOT a Sparks
parody. So, hey, whaddya'll think? Sparks or no?
I suppose I should probably be posting a cut by the Billy Nayer Show
since Dale and I are gonna go see them tonight, but I'm listening to
Voobaha right now again, and I'm really in a Barnes & Barnes mood
today, so here you go. (Though, of course, if you know me, I've
probably preached the gospel of the awesomeness of the Billy Nayer Show
to/at you before, so you probably don't need me to tell you here that
you NEED to buy every record and DVD they ever put out. Actually,
same with Barnes & Barnes, but hey.) This is just a really
great rockin' stomper of a song, and it's always been one of my
favorites. Always wanted to form a band that would have this in
its repertoire. Just a great rock song all around.
Actually, today, at the Barnes & Barnes Yahoo Group,
someone posted an ALTERNATE version that aired on the Dr. Demento show
in 1979 -- this is the straight album version, though. The
Alternate's got a quite different vocal line, and a couple lyrical
tweaks (in this one, "Down on the boulevard dey pumpin'/Dey pumpin' in
Lumania too" is "Down in Mexico dey pumpin'/They pumpin' in Canada too"
-- but I like the album lyrics better) -- it's definitely worth
checking out, but this is by far the superior version. After all,
it IS the one they put on the record and all. So, here goes --
dig this song. I sure as hell do.
