Spinal Tap
“We're sort of like Gibraltar. We're always there, obscuring most of the view. Especially when you get up close to us — have you noticed that? The closer you get to us, the more the view is obscured.” – David St. Hubbins
“When you get older you realize that what's important is not the amount of notes that you play. It's if you're thinking about them after you've played them.” – Nigel Tufnel
“There's a conspiracy between the Japanese and the Dutch — because they invented the cassette — to get rid of any kind of recorded medium that you can play backwards.” – Derek Smalls
Albums Reviewed:
Spinal Tap is a fictional band created by Michael McKean, Christopher Guest, and Harry Shearer that does a better job of lampooning a musical genre (in this case cheesy, overserious 70’s/80’s metal, which is admittedly pretty easy to make fun of) than any fictional band ever created, in the humble opinion of this faceless schlock. If you somehow have not seen the 1984 film This is Spinal Tap, you need to right now to understand the full brilliance inherent in the alter-egos of these funny men, David St. Hubbins, Nigel Tufnel, and Derek Smalls, though the soundtrack can give you a pretty good idea of it. I’m also gonna stop here, because writing a long, detailed intro on what is essentially a big joke would be almost as stupid as not seeing Harold and Kumar go to White Castle (the funniest movie released since Old School, bar none, if not FUNNIER) as soon as you’re finished reading this page. It’s real good and stuff.
And, onto the reviews!
PS: All three of the quotes above come from the band’s hilarious April, 1992 interview with Guitar World magazine, which you can read here.
PPS: Geddy Lee’s voice is annoying.
Spinal Tap (1984)
Rating: 9
Best Song: “Sex Farm”
If anyone can find a better, more clever, more on-the-money metal parody album (or blacker album cover) than this one, I will give them $100 as soon as I have some money, and until then they can just privately celebrate the fact that they’ve outsmarted someone who went to Harvard (just don’t tell them that “went to Harvard” = “takes tests and regurgitates knowledge well”). If you aren’t musically inclined or familiar with the genres David, Nigel, and Derek are lampooning here, you’ll probably think it’s, you know, kinda funny, because “Big Bottom” is about a big ass and stuff. Funny! But if you DO know the 70’s metal (with occasional excursions into fruity 60’s pop and flower-children psychedelic happy music) that they’re making fun of, then this will be HILARIOUS. If you read this site semi-regularly, have seen the movie, AND heard this album, and don’t like them, then I don’t think Zell Miller is the biggest joke of a person I’ve ever come across in my entire life. Someone’s fibbing. Dennis Kucinich might as well say he’s Republican. No one’s gonna buy it.
Anyway, if
you might’ve only heard of Spinal Tap, but don’t know much about them
(not to say every person in the world has heard of them, but if you read my
site on a regular basis you’re either a) one of my friends or b) someone who
would eat this thing up in about 5 seconds (or both), so to claim you don’t
know what this thing is in concept would just be idiotic. It’s like a 13-year-old moron girl not
knowing who Hilary Duff is), I’ll briefly explain. The band spends most of the album hilariously mimicking and
sending up every kind of classic 70’s/early 80’s metal genre you could think
of, from fast party stuff (“Tonight I’m Gonna Rock You Tonight”) to offensive
sex romps (“Big Bottom,” “Sex Farm”) to slower dirges (“Heavy Duty”) to cheesy
art-metal (“Rock and Roll Creation,” “Stonehenge”) to a ridiculous tribute to
America that extols the Brady Bunch, Smoky Bear, and Afrosheen as our country’s
greatest virtues, includes the line “pretty womens everywhere!” (yes, it’s
plural) and ends with the brilliant snippet “God Bless Johnny Appleseed!” They even stick on a few tracks from the
band’s early career in the sixties to show that they’ve never had any originality,
and they almost come out funnier than the metal parodies. “Cups and Cakes” mocks the British cutesy
music hall ’65-‘66 scene to a hilarious extreme, including the word “treacle”
and using “gay” as an adjective to mean “happy.” “Gimme Some Money” is a brilliant sendup of Kingsmen-type random
garage bands, and “(Listen to the) Flower People” employs every lyrical cliché
of 1967 possible before throwing on a sitar and a classical music quote for no
reason to top it off.
But the complete idiocy of the band is put in full focus with the metal ripoffs, not only because they show that they’ve just been imitating cliches since 1960, but also because they are MORONIC. But since they’re supposed to be, they turn out gut-bustingly hilarious. The tunes are even pretty catchy! The music itself, when you consider that the three guys involved wrote and recorded it themselves, is impressive! It’s just average if they didn’t, but they’re comedians! So it’s OK. I’ve never actually found the opener “Hell Hole” all that funny (musically it’s one of the best tunes here, but who gives a shit? It’s a damn parody album), and besides the line “You’re too young and I’m too well-hung!”, the only thing all that funny about “Tonight I’m Gonna Rock You Tonight” is its ridiculous title, but the rest of the metal parodies are absolutely ace. “Heavy Duty” does the whole “loudness = goodness” thing perfectly (“Why waste good music on a brain?”) amidst claims that heavy duty rock and roll “brings out the DUTY…in my soul!!!!!” “Big Bottom” is a double entendre that never ceases to be funny in itself (all bass = big bottom = big ass, HEE!!!!!!), and to quote all the ridiculous lyrics that make me fall over laughing would just take all day (although I will mention that placing it after “Cups and Cakes” was a genius sequencing move). “Sex Farm” is probably the filthiest and funniest song I’ve ever heard (sample metaphors: “Sniffing at your feedbag!” “Bothering your livestock!” “Wolfing down some cornbread!”), and if you don’t die laughing at that “SEX FARM WOMAN!!!” chorus, I can’t be your friend. And the art-metal parodies…christ, they’re brilliant. “When there was silence and the hush was almost DEAFENING!!!” from “Rock and Roll Creation.” The spoken intro and ukulele (or whatever the hell it is) solo section from “Stonehenge” where the dwarves dance around the tiny model in the movie. The keyboard breaks (ESPECIALLY the intro to “Rock and Roll Creation,” which is so unnecessary it’s absolutely 100% necessary for the joke). There has never been a parody album as spot-on as this. If “Hell Hole” made me laugh at all I might bump it up to a 10, and I rarely ever listen to this thing. And why don’t I? Because it’s a damn comedy album! So who cares?
Essentially, it takes people who are incredibly smart to make something this incredibly stupid. And they clearly know and love what they’re parodying, too, which is essential if you want to get it right. If you like 70’s metal, have a sense of humor, and don’t own this, you need this, if only because it might never be done this well again.
nator9999@comcast.net
writes:
I don't think I can really sum up the genius of this
album in my own
words, so instead I'll use the immortal words of Spinal Tap:
"My baby fits me like a flesh tuxedo / I wanna sink her with my pink
torpedo."
In other words, "Big Bottom" is the greatest song ever written.
Hey, why don't they have a an "Intravenus De Milo" album like they
did
in the movie? I crapped myself at that part!
Break Like The Wind (1992)
Rating: 6
Best Song: “Rainy Day Sun”
I
really wish this album was worse than it was, so I could just go “Shit
sandwich,” end the review, and then everyone would laugh uproariously at my
clever joke, but it’s not bad. Pretty
much totally unnecessary, but also adequate enough to not suck, so I say
“whatever,” give it a 6, and move onto non-parody bands. I don’t even know why the guys would bother
making this thing, except maybe to cash in on the time Spinal Tap was on the
Simpsons talking about how their records sell well in all the countries that
end in “garia,” which may or may not have been at roughly the same time as this
album’s release, I have no idea.
Anyway, the problem is that the record just isn’t that funny. With the movie soundtrack, if you didn’t
know going in that it was a joke, you figured it out pretty quickly (I
hope). With this one, I mean,
it’s not so obvious. There’s nothing
like, well, EVERY SINGLE DAMN SONG ON THE MOVIE SOUNDTRACK that yells out
“Hey! Look at me! I’m a joke!
I’m funny!” Yeah, there are
funny moments in a lot of the songs, and the token psychedelic send-up (“Rainy
Day Sun,” which is supposedly the original B-side of “(Listen to the) Flower
People,” I think, and is a TOTAL Magical Mystery Tour homage) is still
pretty great, but if you didn’t know that this album was made by a bunch of comedians, you’d probably think
it’s just some randomly average 80’s metal band.
Another reason it’s hard to tell
whether it’s a joke is that a bunch of guest guitarists and stuff (Joe
Satriani, etc.) come on board, so some of the guitar solos truly shred in the way Christopher Goddamn Guest could obviously never do. I love how they give a guest vocal to Cher
on “Just Begin Again,” the token power ballad (the only guest-spot that makes
the album seem like more of a joke rather than less), but
whatever. I only chuckle maybe once or
twice during it anyway. Like the
totally overblown quality of the song is supposed to be the joke itself, and to me it’s only mildly amusing.
“The Majesty of Rock” does OK at this whole “really wayyyyyy overblown =
joke” thing, though. Sounds like a
Tenacious D song without cursing and with more 80’s-ish production. I like “Diva Fever,” too, a speedy Van Hagar-ish
thing (think “Source of Infection,” but without Sammy Hagar ruining the entire
song by being an idiot) about how rock stars can only date famous diva chicks
(or something, I’m just guessing). I
mostly just like the a-cappella “can’t go back!” parts, though. Those are funny. “Break Like the Wind” is another “arty” song, only it doesn’t
have one of those hilarious “Rock and Roll Creation”-esque totally unnecessary
keyboard parts. Just, you know, wind
noises instead. It’s actually a pretty
good song! Just like the first one,
there are a number of honest-to-goodness quality tracks on here, comedy or not,
and the musical quality isn’t that much lower than the first. It’s just not that FUNNY.
Some songs totally miss. “Christmas with the Devil” is quite possibly the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard in my life (and not in a good way, in a “trying to be funny, but failing” way). “Cash on Delivery” and “Stinkin’ up the Great Outdoors” have a combined zero reasons to exist. The middle-eastern supposed leftover from Nigel’s solo project “Clam Caravan” is pretty funny, though (“I ride across the desert on my camel…over hills of sand. What’s that I see in the distance? Only hills of sand”), and the closing “artifact” from 1961, “All the Way Home,” is pretty funny, but these are the exceptions. The songs that are lampooning something other than generic metal work on this record, but the ones that are lampooning generic metal (i.e. most everything) aren’t that far away from being generic metal and are VERY hit-or-miss, and none of the hits come close to the best laughs on the first one. But it’s not, like, bad or anything. Just adequately forgettable, and occasionally chuckle-worthy, but never laugh-out-loud-worthy. If you worship Spinal Tap to the degree that you watch the movie twice a week and own every piece of memorabilia they’ve ever released, you’ll probably like this a lot. But, then again, if you’re one of those people you probably already have this. And I wouldn’t recommend that anyone else get this. So fuck it.