January 13, 2025 • 44 mins
Time to laugh – or at least to give it a good try. On today’s episode we explore music albums focused on making you chuckle. As we quickly find out, combining music and comedy is easier said than done.
- Flight of the Conchords – Flight of the Conchords (2008)
- “Weird Al” Yankovic – “Weird Al” Yankovic in 3-D (1984)
- Spinal Tap – This is Spinal Tap (1984)
Other Diggins
- Ka – The Thief Next to Jesus (2024)
- Father John Misty – Mahashmashana (2024)
- Have You Got It Yet? The Story of Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd (2023)
- Matt Pond PA & Alexa Rose – The Ball of the Natural Lines (Feb 27, 2025)
- Opeth – The Last Will and Testament (2024)
- The Black Crowes – Happiness Bastards (2024)
What do you think of these records? What albums do you turn to for a good laugh? Let us know on our website, albumnerds.com or email us, podcast@albumnerds.com.
Listen to more episodes and suggest topics for the Wheel of Musical Discovery on albumnerds.com. Follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Bluesky.
Thanks for listening!!!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to the Album Nerds podcast with your hosts, Andy, Don, and Dude.
(00:13):
Man, I just flew in from Cleveland and boy are my arms tired.
This is the Album Nerds podcast.
I'm Dude.
I got Andy and Don with me.
Andy, you ready to talk about some hearty har har har funny albums?
Yeah, yeah.
You know I am, man.
Hopefully by the end of this episode I get some respect, you know?
(00:40):
What's the deal with music podcasts?
Is it radio?
Is it, I don't know.
Oh well.
Who are the ad wizards who came up with that campaign?
There you go.
Yeah, that's why we leave the comedy up to the experts.
Yeah, professionals only on this episode.
So this is of course the Album Nerds podcast.
(01:00):
We love music.
We love albums.
We love the album format.
We've got a great show for you this week.
We're going to be discussing three music albums that have comedic or funny overtones.
Don's going to ask us a deep question.
We're going to have some shout outs to some albums or album related items that we're digging.
And then of course we'll spin that wheel of musical discovery to find out what we'll talk
(01:21):
about next time.
But this time it's all about the funny.
Funny music albums have been delighting listeners for decades, blending comedic lyrics with
catchy tunes to create memorable and entertaining experiences.
From parody songs to originals, these albums showcase the diverse ways artists can use
music as a vehicle for humor and satire.
(01:44):
Today each of us will present funny albums.
Yeah, funny music albums not only delight listeners, but also frustrate them depending
on how funny they think it is or isn't.
Yes, funny is very subjective.
Yes.
And that's where the challenge here was.
(02:04):
What are the artists leaning on?
Is there a good musical foundation beneath the funny?
I think that's pretty important.
So how'd you guys do?
What other albums did you consider while taking this hilarious journey?
Well, this is not something I usually listen to.
I mean, I like standup, but I don't usually listen to albums kind of in this format.
(02:26):
So I was a little bit lost.
I started with Reggie Watts, who kind of has like a standup sort of vibe to his performance.
He's just like a beatbox kind of fun.
King Missal from the 90s, kind of like poetic kind of dark comedy.
A rock group called Psycho Stick.
Another rock group called the Axis of Awesome.
I think a little more modern groups there.
Yeah, but King Missal was really the one I enjoyed the most.
(02:48):
I think their record from 1990, they was one I almost went with.
It's really dark and twisted, but it is funny in kind of a weird sort of way.
That's the one with Detachable Penis?
Yeah, Detachable Penis.
That was their big hit.
I got to hear that on the radio a little bit.
Similar goofy songs on that record.
Other detachable things?
Yeah, the different body parts.
Every song has detachable toe, whatever.
(03:08):
What'd you find?
Near the scene, Excursions Down?
Well I was thinking about some albums that are kind of more sort of in that gray area,
somewhere between serious and silly.
So I thought about They Might Be Giants, their album Flood.
I remember I was in junior high at the time and I enjoyed songs like Particle Man and
(03:33):
their cover of Istanbul, not Constantinople.
Yeah, I only really remember that because my little sister used to watch that Tiny Tunes
Adventures show and they did kind of like music videos for those songs.
I didn't realize it was a real band at the time.
Yeah, They Might Be Giants is John Flansburg and John Lanelli.
(03:53):
They're actually pretty talented.
It's just two guys and they're obviously very good musicians and their music can be sort
of complex, but it's also a little bit goofy.
What about you, dude?
I also considered bands like Presidents of the United States of America that were funny,
but not comedic.
And it wasn't really parody exactly, it was just silly.
(04:16):
One I really would have liked to have talked about that we already talked about on the
show a couple years back, and this is parody, was Hot Country Nights.
The album was The K Is Silent.
Dierks Bentley, well-known huge country star, had an alter ego band where they all had mullet
wigs and did a 90s country tribute.
It had songs like Moosenuckle Shuffle, Wrangler, Danger, and You Make It Hard.
(04:41):
Well, Ass Fault takes dad jokes to the next level with puns.
Yes, it was that Ass Fault if I recall.
Yeah.
So it's about hitting the road, but it's also about that ass.
That's kind of, I think the lane we ended up in for the most part.
So why don't we get into our choo choo choo choices.
(05:03):
You choo choo choose me?
All right, well for my funny album selection, we're talking about Flight of the Concords
and their self-titled debut full length from 2008 Flight of the Concords.
So the Concords are made up of multi-intermentalist Brent McKenzie and Jermaine Clement.
(05:29):
What are their rap names?
The Rhyme Nostrils and the Hip Hop Apotomy.
Noice Don impressed.
I knew they were large mammals, but I wasn't 100% sure.
So they are from Wellington, New Zealand.
Are you guys familiar with the kind of like comedic stylings of New Zealand?
Yes.
Kind of have a very dry sense of humor, I guess I would say, self-deprecating kind of
(05:54):
stuff.
Yeah.
But it's a unique position in the world geographically, which I think would create a very different
type of awareness of your own culture.
Yeah, that's a recurring joke on the show that they're sort of like little brother to
Australia.
People always mistake them for Australian.
Yes, I make that mistake a lot.
(06:15):
All right, so the album Flight of the Concords, the songs are pulled from the HBO TV series
Flight of the Concords, which is loosely based on the BBC radio program from 2005, Flight
of the Concords.
These guys have been kind of working on this material for quite a while.
Why don't we jump in here and play, this was the in the pilot episode of the HBO series.
(06:37):
This is called The Most Beautiful Girl in the Room.
They do this kind of funny thing in the TV series where the scene will be going along
normally and everything will just kind of stop and they'll do the music video kind of
(06:57):
around the actors in the scene, which I think works pretty well, especially in this case.
So everybody's kind of like frozen and they're just like singing around them and they're
not bad musicians, they have kind of a nice falsetto and I think what impressed me about
this album was they explore a lot of different genres, which I was not common in these style
albums.
It seems like the parody is more of the genres and the tropes within those genres than like
(07:24):
they're not parodying other songs.
It's the styles that they're parodying and they do it well.
They do it effectively, which is I think what makes this actually work.
And I assumed it was going to suck.
So.
Yeah, I think it works pretty well.
My clickbait headline for Flight of the Concords is no matter the country, medium or genre,
(07:45):
Brett and Jermaine can take a dumb situation, give it a beat and make you laugh.
These guys are pretty good about pulling comedy out of like pretty mundane situations or pretty
not seemingly very funny situations.
I appreciate that.
It's very dry humor, but I think it's just kind of like they're very overly honest about
themselves and they kind of overshare in every situation.
(08:08):
And it just leads to some funny circumstances and I think largely the music helps tell the
stories in the show and on the album here.
I think that's by far what they're best at.
I think what is interesting though is that even without the context of the show, which
I had seen bits and pieces of over the years, the album itself is still enjoyable.
You don't need the storyline for the songs to be funny and you may not know what the
(08:33):
storyline was, but it doesn't really matter.
They're still good.
Yeah.
The story does not seem very important at all.
Listen to the album.
Yeah.
So they go through different genres such as folk, pop, funk and hip hop.
When we play a cut here next, Inner City Pressure.
Well, Inner City Pressure appears in the second episode of the series called Brett Gives
(09:02):
Up the Dream.
And it's just about them kind of looking for a job and trying to make ends meet.
So the song is about the challenges of urban living, particularly for struggling artists.
It's quite clearly kind of a parody of West End Girls by the Pet Shop Boys.
It's not a direct parody as in like it's not taking the song and changing the lyrics, but
(09:24):
it's so clearly a Pet Shop Boys take.
So my clickbait headline for Flight of the Concords is, Clever Kiwi Comedians Take the
Cringe Out of Funny Music.
That's good.
Yeah.
I worry about these kinds of things.
I'm generally not drawn to parody music.
I mean, I was when I was a child.
(09:44):
But the songs are, I mean, they're well written, but they're funny.
They're not like I'm dying laughing funny, but they're clever and I don't know how to
explain it.
I mean, it's silly things that they say at times.
But what makes it funny, I think, is the context of the genre or the music they're representing.
You're expecting it to be serious and then they throw in these silly little references
(10:08):
to things and it throws you off.
It's like a little surprise.
So it's like, did I hear what I think I just heard?
Yeah.
Yeah, that's true.
And as Andy mentioned, I kind of like the self-deprecating approach of most of their
songs.
I think this works better in the context of a show where you have a story going on and
there's just a couple of songs that you hear.
(10:30):
As far as an album goes, I'm not going to listen to it more than a couple of times.
It's a novelty, as they say.
Yeah.
It's a novelty for sure.
But I think in the right context, maybe in a mixtape or on a road trip, maybe this would
be fun to sing along to if you really were a big fan.
Okay, let's hear another track from the record.
This is track four.
It's called Think About It.
(10:50):
I'm getting the knives and forks.
I'm trying to beat his own leg.
This song is really good.
Really good.
I'm getting the knives and forks.
I'm trying to beat his own leg.
This song saturizes the sincere protest songs, like What's Going On by Marvin Gaye, which
(11:14):
is what this reminded me of the most.
In the context of the episode, the one dude has his collar up and it's very much like
the cover of What's Going On and they're walking through the city.
But yeah, so it contrasts real social issues with absurd scenarios.
There's crime and violence, but instead of a knife, it's a knife and a fork that's stabbing
(11:35):
someone.
And then there's a diseased monkey.
Just some goofy guys.
Yes.
Again, the parody of the style was effective.
Like the tone of it is like, okay, I know what they're doing here.
And I clickbait headline to describe Flight of the Conchords.
Weird and inexplicably catchy.
Flight of the Conchords proved that comedy and music can coexist.
(11:59):
Not to get too far ahead of myself here, but this ain't Weird Al, right?
It's not sophomoric completely.
It is, but it isn't.
Yes.
It's the thinking man's sophomoric.
As much as this can be.
Yeah.
And they don't go the filthy route.
They use like nice sounding versions of dirty words.
(12:19):
I think that's refreshing.
And this was on HBO.
They could have said whatever they wanted to.
I think that adds to the humor.
It softens the edge of the parody when you don't go the easy route and use dirty words
and stuff.
Unlike Tenacious D.
Exactly.
The anti-Tenacious D. The humor is nuanced.
You kind of have to listen to catch it.
(12:40):
Yeah.
This was funny and funny by itself and then funny in the context.
I watched an episode of the show to get a sense of it and it was the one that featured
this song.
Yeah.
I don't think you need the show, but it helps.
It helps.
Yeah.
A demonstration of how good they are at their instruments and what kind of musicians they
are.
There is a live special on HBO.
(13:02):
I think it's called Live in London from like 2018, but it's a good watch.
It's only like an hour and a half.
That adds a lot.
The musicianship and the actual involvement in the composition matters for this type of
discussion.
When we're looking for good funny albums, I think them being true musicians and not
just a standup comedian doing a song about poop, it's...
(13:26):
That helps a lot when you have to listen to the record multiple times.
Yes.
Yes, it does.
For sure.
Yeah.
So if you're not familiar with the record or Fly the Concords, I think it's definitely
worth a listen.
They explore things that are like pop songs, kind of like pitbull style things.
There's like Indian style songs with like more like traditional Indian sounds.
(13:46):
There's a really funny song at the end of the record called Bowie, which has like different
versions of David Bowie talking to himself.
That's a good one.
Fly the Concords, whether you check out the TV show or the album or even the radio program,
I think they're all pretty funny and worth your time.
Before we continue on with our journey of ruffling, why don't we hear a little bit from
(14:10):
the front of the show, Pick A Disc.
Do you like music?
Do you like podcasts?
Chances are you like music podcasts.
Take this one for example, Pick A Disc, where every fortnight a guest comes on to talk about
an album for whatever reason they want to.
Sometimes I like it, sometimes perhaps even something else other than just like it.
You just listen to the podcast and find out.
We talk about the album, we talk about the songs, we talk about the artists, we talk
about tangent things that are slightly related and sometimes we deviate off tangents.
(14:34):
Don't worry, we always bring it back in the end.
But you can find us at all your social medias and all the podcast apps for searching for
Pick A Disc.
You can also find us on the part of the Weedig Podcast Network under Linktree slash Weedig
Podcasts.
Until then, happy listening to all those discs that you are picking.
Goodbye.
He's actually on a roll lately because of course I guest starred in an episode where
(14:57):
we talked about Depeche Mode Violator.
I recently did the Cure Songs of a Lost World and the latest one has The The Dusk.
Oh my gosh.
Don Takeover there it sounds like.
Donnie Likey.
All right, so my pick for a funny album comes from Weird Al Yankovic from February of 1984.
(15:21):
It's called Weird Al Yankovic in 3D.
It's the second studio album by Weird Al Yankovic born Alfred Matthew Yankovic in Downey, California
in 1959.
The album is built around parodies and pastiche.
You're trying to make this sound like more fancy than it is.
(15:41):
It's a bunch of songs about baloney and stuff.
Yeah.
So yeah, they're parodies of pop music of the mid 1980s.
Half of the songs are like direct parodies, right?
Where he's basically just changing lyrics of songs and the others are style parodies,
kind of more similar to what we just talked about with Flight of the Conchords.
Here is the big one, Eat It.
That was weak.
(16:07):
Japan, not where people say kids are starving.
That's right.
It rhymes.
Yeah, there isn't a cereal that rhymes with Ethiopia.
So Eat It is obviously a parody of Michael Jackson's 1983 single Beat It and the lyrics
(16:31):
are changed to be about a parent attempting to get a picky child to eat anything at all.
Grown.
Yeah.
I mean, some of it's pretty clever.
As I'm listening through to these songs, I'm like, oh, that's kind of funny.
It goes in places you don't expect.
Apparently Michael Jackson thought it was funny and agreed to allow the parody.
(16:53):
I heard it correctly, so this was the beginning of the downfall of Michael Jackson after the
song was parodied.
At the time I was a little kid, but I was a huge Michael Jackson fan and I took offense
to this.
Personal offense.
Yeah.
I was like, who would want to listen to this instead of the real song?
The video was quite funny, you know, because he was wearing the Michael Jackson.
(17:15):
The video was great.
I was like, what?
Instead of fighting with switch blades and stuff, they're doing knives and forks and
stuff.
Of course, in Beat It, the guitar solo is done by Eddie Van Halen.
In this case, it's actually done by Rick Derringer who you might know from Rock and Roll, Hoochie
Coo and that Hulk Hogan real American song.
Yeah, he produced the album and several of Weird Al's albums.
(17:40):
Anyway, Mike Lickbait headline for Weird Al Yankovic in 3D is Yankovic Cement's Legacy
as the parody artist.
I think Weird Al is sort of synonymous with parody songs.
I think this is really when he hit.
He kind of took it over from the old school 60s and 70s parody stuff were more vaudevillian
(18:04):
in a way.
He reestablished it as a viable way to make money in the music industry.
This one's a little different from his first album, which featured a lot of accordion,
basically accordion going along with every track.
On this one, the backing music is pretty true to the original records.
Yeah, let's hear some more.
This is Polkas on 45.
(18:26):
You're my woman, got my mojo right then.
Mr. Mojo right then.
Yeah, so that includes a series of classic rock songs rewritten as polka tunes.
There's like 20 of them or something in there.
Yeah, in like three or four minutes, right?
Yes, felt longer, but yes, three or four minutes.
(18:48):
So yeah, the juxtaposition of the original songs with the polka music was taken very
seriously by Lawrence Welk and other artists.
But like LA Woman and Hey Jude are stripped of their coolness.
Yes, they are.
Hey Joe, gonna shoot my old lady.
(19:12):
So the medley also includes traditional polka songs like Beer Barrel Polka and Clarinet
Polka, which pretty much it seems like the trick is put polka at the end of any words
and that's a polka song.
Yeah, so my clickbait headline to describe in 3D, the album that divides people, either
(19:35):
you're laughing or wondering how this ever got released.
There's little middle ground for Weird Al, people either like, ugh, so stupid or they
love it.
I'm kind of in that so stupid camp.
However, I'm not totally immune.
I mean, I liked the movie UHF that he made.
(19:55):
I enjoyed the album even worse in 1987.
Of course, I was reading Mad Magazine at that period of my life.
So a buddy loaned it to me and loaned the album to me and I listened to it a bunch of
times for a couple of weeks and then I got bored with it.
So I had my dalliance.
He seems like a cool guy.
I respect what he does.
(20:16):
I just don't really like listening to it.
The humor is very Mad Magazine.
I just don't like Weird Al like I used to, okay?
Ouch!
I mean, like a song here or there is fun to hear, but a whole album is no bueno.
Well, let's hear the closing cut on the record.
(20:40):
This is the epic Nature Trail to Hell.
This is one of three originals from in 3D about a fictional horror movie.
I'd be lying if I wasn't humming that to myself over the last few days.
(21:02):
It is pretty catchy as idiotic as it is.
It's got this great kind of hidden moment in it where there's a backwards passage that
says Satan eats cheese whiz about two thirds of the way through the record.
I mean, stuff like that as like a 12, 13 year old boy would just be like comedy gold.
(21:23):
I mean, that's like all you could ask for.
As a 40 year old, maybe not quite as appealing.
I clicked the headline for in 3D is one thing is for sure, no matter the number of dimensions,
Ale always brings the weird.
I haven't heard a lot of his discography, but I would say the wrong records I've heard,
this is fairly listenable.
I think it's a big step forward from his debut, which I think is maybe not very listenable
(21:46):
at least for me.
This is much more tight, inventive, pretty fun.
I mean, I think the least enjoyable part for me is his vocal.
It's so easily and just strained and that part gets hard for me to listen to for 45
minutes straight.
Lyrics are funny and it's all done with a good sense of humor.
He's like his personality.
I think he's just kind of a funny guy.
I wish it was more meat to the satire.
(22:09):
Like there's not beyond the base joke and we're not talking about what the original
song is about.
There's nothing really going on in terms of like developing a theme or an idea during
the course of the verses.
The compositions, either they're close, you know, as close as I can get to direct copies
of what they're parodying or then the original compositions are not musical enough for me.
(22:33):
It doesn't sound like much care was put into the music.
It's more about talking about spaghetti or whatever.
Yeah.
It kind of feels like a wedding band kind of level of quality.
Like it's not bad by any means, but it's fairly paint by numbers, I guess.
I keep, I can go back to like, who is this made for?
Like who's buying these records?
Is it like?
Me, back when I was seven.
(22:56):
He has a fan base of adults that grew up on him that still love it and love the, I guess
the live shows are quite entertaining and different props and costume changes and stuff
like that.
So I don't know.
It's definitely special.
It's just too special for me.
It is very impressive that he's been doing this relevant for as many decades as he has.
(23:21):
I mean, not alone is pretty rare in music.
Yeah.
So when you talk about parody music, Weird Al is generally the first name that comes
out.
So check out Weird Al Yankovic in 3D.
Excuse me.
I'd like to ask you a few questions.
It's time again for Deep Questions by Don.
(23:43):
All right, so as I said, you know, I used to really be in the Weird Al when I was a kid
and you know, these days I don't like it quite as much.
What did you used to think was funny, but not so much anymore?
Yeah, it's like an interesting question, Don.
I was in high school.
One of the more popular things for boys my age were these like prank phone call albums
(24:04):
that were coming out.
Like primarily the Jerky Boys was like everything in my high school for some reason.
I guess I thought it was funny then.
I don't really find the prank stuff very funny at all nowadays.
And I feel like there's a lot of like really toxic pranking ongoing on YouTube and TikTok
and stuff.
And fake pranking too.
Sometimes it's so clearly staged and the reactions are so funny, but people still buy into it
(24:30):
and then they try to recreate those with their family and friends and people get hurt.
Yeah, or people get like seriously injured or like really do terrible things to each
other.
That's not that great.
Prank culture.
Prank culture.
See ya.
What about you, dude?
So just one silly thing from probably around the same time that I thought Weird Al was
(24:52):
fun to listen to, the Garbage Pail Kids.
Oh yeah, like trading cards?
Yeah, the trading cards.
I thought those were hilarious, like snotty lotty and it's just a girl covered in mucus.
Dana Druff or Dana Druff or something.
Yeah, so I mean it was basically for those that haven't seen it, it was a trading card
(25:15):
series and it was these cartoon characters that looked a lot like Cabbage Patch Kids,
but gross stuff was happening to them or...
Yeah.
And then they had gross names and stuff.
Yeah, I thought that was hilarious.
They were like the Weird Al of Cabbage Patch Kids.
Yes, exactly.
Well, and they were kind of a spinoff of, I think they were called Wacky Packs or something.
Yeah, but a piece of dry gum came in the pack of cards and...
(25:36):
Nice.
Yeah, I thought those were hilarious and I used to draw my own as well.
Really?
Yeah.
Wow.
I was quite into it for a couple of months probably and as kids do, you move on pretty
quickly but...
I had a school folder for I think Blasted Billy or Adam Baum or...
Do you ever see the live action movie?
No.
(25:56):
What?
Wow.
Wow.
Atrocious.
The puppets are so disgusting looking that it's like a horror film almost.
I'm kind of curious.
Yeah, it's like I think they're aliens or something.
I don't know.
They're trying to give them a backstory.
Yeah.
How about you, Don?
(26:16):
Well, I know humor changes over time and through decades and I can usually go back to things
from the 60s, 70s and 80s and even if I don't find it laugh out loud funny, I can sort of
appreciate why it was funny at the time, appreciate the context.
But I watched one of the Police Academy movies recently.
It did not hold up well but the biggest problem was that Bobcat Gold twait or whatever.
(26:42):
I remember thinking he was funny when I was 12 or 11 or whatever but I don't get the character.
Like a drunk Yoda?
Yeah.
And he kind of ruins that movie Scrooge with Bill Murray which is otherwise a pretty good
movie but he's the weakest part of that.
(27:03):
I have heard that he's gone on to like he doesn't do that character anymore and does
funny things.
So a lot of those 80s comedies in particular and I don't know about the Police Academy
per se but there were a lot of those that you go back and watch like Porkies and that
kind of stuff that are just like the behavior of the kids in that is deplorable.
(27:24):
It's not funny at all but at a different time.
Different times, yeah.
Well what do you think is not so funny anymore?
Let us know.
Hit us on Instagram and Facebook or leave a comment on our website AlbumNerds.com.
So my pick for a funny album is this is Spinal Tap, the soundtrack to the movie of the same
(27:48):
name and the fake band is Spinal Tap.
They're a fictional English heavy metal band.
It was created by American comedians and musicians Michael McKeon, Christopher Guest and Harry
Shearer and they portray these band members David St. Hubbins, Nigel Tufnel and Derek
Smalls.
It debuted in 1979 as a sketch on an ABC comedy TV show and rose to fame with the mockumentary
(28:12):
This is Spinal Tap.
Alright so why don't we kick it off with Big Bottom.
So this was released in 1984 and it's really a mock rock documentary about the absurdities
(28:39):
of the rock world and the lines that rock bands would push in that era with innuendo
and stuff and they take it one step further.
She was a fast machine, she kept her motor clean.
Yes.
But the soundtrack was co-written by Rob Reiner who's the director of the film and then the
three members of the band and cast and they played their own instruments and they wrote
(29:02):
these songs.
It sounds so close to what could have actually been happening in metal music at the time
especially when you consider this would have been more of a greatest hit.
There's a fake discography of like 10 albums that these songs are from, these songs are
featured in their live performances in the film.
(29:23):
My clickbait headline to describe the album, this is Spinal Tap because what's rock without
big balls, bigger bottoms and a complete lack of self-awareness.
It almost becomes what it poked fun at.
Like I said, it's so close to that line of sounding genuine.
The big bottom in particular reminds me of Big Balls by ACDC from 1976 where it's about
(29:47):
Cotillion's and rich people's balls but it's also about testicles.
The fact that that existed for real is mind boggling but the music's kind of all over
the place, they do hard rock, glam metal, jazz fusion, little reggae and it even sounds
progressive rock at times.
So it started as a joke and they actually built a loyal fan base of people who love
(30:11):
the music so who the fuck.
All right, why don't we get into the next song.
This one's a little more serious.
It's called Sex Bomb.
I love that in the movie, Derek Smalls is talking about how their songwriting has gotten
(30:37):
more mature and sex-firing for instance.
Yeah, where it's just about the human sexuality.
Yeah, sex-firing there.
It doesn't really have any profanity in it but somehow it is so incredibly vulgar and
over the top.
Every time it just kind of stops me in my tracks listening to this album.
(31:02):
But they sell it, they 100% do sell it.
I don't know how they walk that line, that thin line.
Well I think it's that rock artist ego that we know that they're tapping into that where
people think they're creating these incredibly deep things and that they're artists and musicians
(31:22):
but really it's just catching in on dirty stuff.
Yeah, everything that touches gold in this movie.
I mean to some degree I guess that is kind of gold.
Comedy golds.
Heyo.
I think as an album this holds up fairly well.
I think a lot of it is owed to that sort of variety of styles that they cover.
(31:43):
This is kind of like a best-grace hit sort of thing from their career.
There's a handful of songs, sex-firing among them, that I think maybe go a little too far
over the line of kind of giving up the illusion that this could be a real band.
Big Bottoms is the only one.
Stonehenge I think is just so silly.
It's so silly.
I love that one.
(32:03):
Well that one's supposed to be tapping more into the iron maideny sort of myths and mystical...
Yeah.
And you could kind of buy that but then the details, it's too silly for me.
But there are a handful of songs on here that I think do work pretty well.
For fans of Kiss or similar bands I think this would be kind of right up your alley.
(32:25):
My clickbait headline for This Is Spinal Tap is Rob Reiner and crew take the mockumentary
genre up to 11.
Couldn't they just make 10 the highest?
No, see this goes beyond that.
They made...
But this goes to 11.
I mean they really do.
They did really perfected the formula for what a mockumentary should be and I think
(32:48):
this is kind of the blueprint for sure.
The songs support it really well.
I believe that these songs are funny on their own but really watching the movie or being
familiar with it and seeing them in the context of their travels on this ill-fated tour makes
them feel more real.
And I believe the movie is necessary for this to have its full impact.
(33:10):
I think you're right, man.
For Stonehenge I just picture those little tiny rocks coming down out of the rafters
and little people dancing around us.
I mean it's so historical.
Apparently that prop debacle from the film was inspired by a real life mistake during
Black Sabbath's 1983 tour but only in reverse.
They had an oversized set that wouldn't fit on the stage.
(33:33):
Oh for real?
I don't know about that.
The prop had an undersized set that was ridiculous.
Yeah, that looks even funnier.
All right well why don't we get into one of the songs that harkens back to the earlier
days of the tap, Listen to the Flower People.
What the flower people say.
Ah, this song.
(33:55):
It's getting louder every day.
Yeah so in the fictional world of This is Spinal Tap, this was supposedly released in
1967 during the summer of love.
I'm not sure if they, it's not clear whether they're Spinal Tap at that point or if they're
still the Thamesmen.
I think they are the tap by this point and Derek Smalls had joined the band by this point.
(34:16):
Oh okay.
Thank you for clarifying those important historical details.
There's a website that has the entire Spinal Tap timeline.
When they were fake born, when they fake got together, all of it.
So yeah, the song supposedly represents their attempt to capitalize on the popular counter
culture movement at the time.
(34:37):
So it's clearly a parody of psychedelic rock and that flower power movement of the late
1960s.
I kind of like it because it's realistic.
You have a lot of those metal bands in the 70s and 80s or rock bands.
They came from different places and they were making goofy music in the 1960s.
(34:58):
One of my clickbait headline is this is Spinal Tap works on screen as well as your boom box.
I agree that the songs make more sense in the context of the film, but it still works.
I actually enjoyed this week listening to these songs and you do catch a lot more of
the lyrics that you might not notice when you're watching the film.
(35:19):
Yeah.
But it really just is a testament to how great a film it is.
Musicians, bands, they all love it.
So they really, I think, sort of captured that, I don't know, I guess what life on the
road can be like for bands, even if they're satirizing it.
Yeah.
I mean, there's some other songs on here like Heavy Duty.
It's about exaggerating strength and power.
(35:40):
Heavy duty.
Heavy duty rock and roll.
Drop a duty on your soul.
Yeah, but duty being D-U-T-Y, like the work that your soul has to do to support this music.
It's not about poo poo.
But yeah, rock and roll creation, I think is funny.
Give me some money is when they were still the Thamesman.
So that's more of a Beatle-y kind of thing.
(36:02):
So yeah, they fill in the history of it so convincingly that when I was a kid, I thought
they were real until I grew up enough to see the movie and go, oh, those are actors that
I recognize.
This album really does blend satire and rock music.
It turns those absurdities of fame and excess into an unforgettable, funny album experience.
(36:22):
So these songs have been stuck in my head.
So why don't you go check out?
This is Spinal Tap.
Can you dig it?
Can you dig it?
Can you dig it?
Well, we've been yucking it up all week.
Did you get down to any serious music?
What are you guys digging?
I got a couple of picks here in my comedic prop trunk.
(36:47):
First one for me is from hip hop artists from Brooklyn, New York.
This is actually kind of a sad story here.
The artist's name is Ka.
He put on an album back in October called The Thief Next to Jesus.
Unfortunately, he passed away in mid-October at the age of 52.
So this is his last known recorded material.
Let's play the opening cut Breadwine, Body Blood.
(37:08):
I actually did listen to this at some point.
I've really enjoyed it a lot.
It's got a lot of gospel samples, a lot of religious imagery.
I think it's a pretty strong call to action in the album.
Is it all drawn out, like his lyrics like that?
Are they slow?
Yeah, very slow, poetic delivery.
I like it.
Yeah, I like him a lot.
He's got an underrated credit to The Neel Drop.
(37:30):
He's a big proponent of him.
But yeah, sadly, he passed away.
The other one for me is from Father John Misty, who we talked about on the show, I think earlier
this year at one point.
He has a new record out called Mahashmashana.
I believe that's how you would say it.
It's his sixth studio album.
Let's play I Guess Time Just Makes Fools of Us All.
So you went with a hip hop album with religious overtones and then you go to a guy with a
(37:57):
name with religious overtones.
Father John Misty.
Yeah, weirdly, that's the funnier record is the Father John one.
Less smirk in the soul than I would say some of his previous work.
A lot more melody.
He's actually singing pretty well and there's a couple of catchy moments on here.
I was surprised.
That was kind of disco-y, that rhythm.
Yeah, he really expands his sonic palette here.
(38:19):
Father John Misty, pretty good stuff.
What you been digging on, Don?
Well, it's been out for a couple of years, but I finally got to it.
There's a documentary about Sid Barrett called Have You Got It Yet?
The Story of Sid Barrett and Pink Floyd.
So as most of you know, Sid Barrett was the original front man of Pink Floyd.
So the film was directed by Roddy Bagawe and Storm Thurgerson from Hypnosis.
(38:44):
Those are the guys that were responsible for a lot of the album covers of Pink Floyd and
others.
But Sid Barrett is a tragic story, basically.
This guy that was really innovative in the psychedelic world.
He sort of succumbed to mental illness.
Definitely a good film to check out.
(39:04):
And then also a band called Mat Pond P.A. Have you guys ever heard of Mat Pond P.A.?
Sounds familiar, yeah.
Is that a town in Pennsylvania?
I still don't understand the title of the band, but it does have a guy named Mat Pond
in it, singer-songwriter.
But they're from Philadelphia, so I guess that's the P.A. part of it.
(39:25):
They have a new album coming out, The Ballad of the Natural Lines, which was due out in
February.
Here's the title track, The Ballad of the Natural Lines.
Man, I know I didn't hear much of it, but it reminds me a little bit of Cracker or something
like that, that era.
Cool.
Got a couple of albums bookmarked here coming out this year from you, Don.
(39:46):
Exciting.
All right.
Well, what about you, dude?
I went back to the 2024.
Well, this album that I'm about to talk about was number 10 on my list for the year.
It's Opeth with The Last Will and Testament.
Came out towards the end of the year.
We get a chance to talk about it on the show, so why don't we kick off with a little bit
of one.
(40:06):
Is that what it says?
The little symbol next to the one is a, means paragraph, I guess.
So paragraph one, but all the songs are just numbers except for the last one.
It's supposed to be Opus with a lisp.
(40:27):
So The Last Will and Testament is the 14th studio album by Swedish progressive metal
band, Opus.
It's a return to their death metal roots with the ground vocals for the first time since
2008.
It's been wrestling up those vocal chords for a long time.
But it's an intricate concept set in post-World War I, unraveling dark family secrets through
(40:51):
this testament style narrative of reading of this will and some secrets about the family
come out.
It's a bit of a slog at first, but the concept helps carry you through.
Once you get through a couple of listens, I thought it was a really great album, but
my first listen I was like, I don't know.
So go check that out if you have a few hours.
The next one up I finally did pick up on vinyl just a few weeks ago.
(41:15):
This was number two on my list for favorite albums of the year.
We did talk about it at the midpoint of the year when we were doing a new release show.
It's the Black Crowes, Happiness Basterds.
Here's a little bit of wanting and waiting.
So this was their first new material since 2009's Before the Frost, Until the Freeze.
(41:39):
It sounds like the Black Crowes, like classic.
It does.
Exactly what you want.
And they nail it.
They sound better than they have in a long time.
And I love it.
I think it's a great record.
Among their best, in my opinion, in their discography.
So go check that one out.
And the vinyl I have is just a plain black, but there are some cool album art.
(41:59):
Like when you open the record, where you put the record sleeve in, there's actually some
printed artwork inside that too.
So they have a few little secrets in the packaging.
Nice.
All right.
So what are you digging?
Let us know.
Join us on the socials, Facebook, Instagram, threads, Blue Sky.
Also on our website, albumnerds.com.
It will be a discovery of extraordinary value.
(42:25):
Well, it's about that time on the show and I'm reminded of the great American comic and
actor Steve Martin, who said, talking about music is like dancing about architecture.
Very true, Steve.
Very true.
With that in mind, let's bring out my friend and yours, Wodbot, and see what we'll be talking
(42:45):
about on next week's episode.
Get ready to dive into the world of controversial albums.
Next time, you will be exploring three records that sparked debates, pushed boundaries, and
shook the music world, proving that art isn't always about playing it safe.
(43:09):
Controversial albums.
That should be interesting.
Potentially dangerous.
Can I just do Prince's controversy?
I'm not sure how controversial it was, but it's got the name.
Yeah.
Time to get scandalous, guys.
What's your favorite controversial album?
What else are you listening to?
Email us at podcast at albumnerds.com.
Also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, threads, and bluesky at albumnerds.com.
(43:32):
And visit albumnerds.com to suggest topics for the show, peruse the Hall of Fame, and
listen to all 274 episodes.
The best way to support the show is to share it.
Please subscribe, rate, and review on your favorite podcast app.
Thank you once again for joining us on the Album Nerds podcast.
We'll go from funny to deadly serious on the next episode when we talk about controversial
(43:54):
albums.
Awesome.
Thanks for listening, everybody.
See you next week.
Try the rye or the Kaiser or the wheat or the white.
Maybe I can suggest an appetizer.
Can you at least do Living with a Hernia?
I don't remember the word.
Living with a Hernia.
That's the one.
(44:14):
Gonna have an operation.
Okay, okay.
Boy oh boy.
So silly.
Welcome to the Album Nerds podcast with your hosts, Andy, Don, and Dude.
(00:13):
Man, I just flew in from Cleveland and boy are my arms tired.
This is the Album Nerds podcast.
I'm Dude.
I got Andy and Don with me.
Andy, you ready to talk about some hearty har har har funny albums?
Yeah, yeah.
You know I am, man.
Hopefully by the end of this episode I get some respect, you know?
(00:40):
What's the deal with music podcasts?
Is it radio?
Is it, I don't know.
Oh well.
Who are the ad wizards who came up with that campaign?
There you go.
Yeah, that's why we leave the comedy up to the experts.
Yeah, professionals only on this episode.
So this is of course the Album Nerds podcast.
(01:00):
We love music.
We love albums.
We love the album format.
We've got a great show for you this week.
We're going to be discussing three music albums that have comedic or funny overtones.
Don's going to ask us a deep question.
We're going to have some shout outs to some albums or album related items that we're digging.
And then of course we'll spin that wheel of musical discovery to find out what we'll talk
(01:21):
about next time.
But this time it's all about the funny.
Funny music albums have been delighting listeners for decades, blending comedic lyrics with
catchy tunes to create memorable and entertaining experiences.
From parody songs to originals, these albums showcase the diverse ways artists can use
music as a vehicle for humor and satire.
(01:44):
Today each of us will present funny albums.
Yeah, funny music albums not only delight listeners, but also frustrate them depending
on how funny they think it is or isn't.
Yes, funny is very subjective.
Yes.
And that's where the challenge here was.
(02:04):
What are the artists leaning on?
Is there a good musical foundation beneath the funny?
I think that's pretty important.
So how'd you guys do?
What other albums did you consider while taking this hilarious journey?
Well, this is not something I usually listen to.
I mean, I like standup, but I don't usually listen to albums kind of in this format.
(02:26):
So I was a little bit lost.
I started with Reggie Watts, who kind of has like a standup sort of vibe to his performance.
He's just like a beatbox kind of fun.
King Missal from the 90s, kind of like poetic kind of dark comedy.
A rock group called Psycho Stick.
Another rock group called the Axis of Awesome.
I think a little more modern groups there.
Yeah, but King Missal was really the one I enjoyed the most.
(02:48):
I think their record from 1990, they was one I almost went with.
It's really dark and twisted, but it is funny in kind of a weird sort of way.
That's the one with Detachable Penis?
Yeah, Detachable Penis.
That was their big hit.
I got to hear that on the radio a little bit.
Similar goofy songs on that record.
Other detachable things?
Yeah, the different body parts.
Every song has detachable toe, whatever.
(03:08):
What'd you find?
Near the scene, Excursions Down?
Well I was thinking about some albums that are kind of more sort of in that gray area,
somewhere between serious and silly.
So I thought about They Might Be Giants, their album Flood.
I remember I was in junior high at the time and I enjoyed songs like Particle Man and
(03:33):
their cover of Istanbul, not Constantinople.
Yeah, I only really remember that because my little sister used to watch that Tiny Tunes
Adventures show and they did kind of like music videos for those songs.
I didn't realize it was a real band at the time.
Yeah, They Might Be Giants is John Flansburg and John Lanelli.
(03:53):
They're actually pretty talented.
It's just two guys and they're obviously very good musicians and their music can be sort
of complex, but it's also a little bit goofy.
What about you, dude?
I also considered bands like Presidents of the United States of America that were funny,
but not comedic.
And it wasn't really parody exactly, it was just silly.
(04:16):
One I really would have liked to have talked about that we already talked about on the
show a couple years back, and this is parody, was Hot Country Nights.
The album was The K Is Silent.
Dierks Bentley, well-known huge country star, had an alter ego band where they all had mullet
wigs and did a 90s country tribute.
It had songs like Moosenuckle Shuffle, Wrangler, Danger, and You Make It Hard.
(04:41):
Well, Ass Fault takes dad jokes to the next level with puns.
Yes, it was that Ass Fault if I recall.
Yeah.
So it's about hitting the road, but it's also about that ass.
That's kind of, I think the lane we ended up in for the most part.
So why don't we get into our choo choo choo choices.
(05:03):
You choo choo choose me?
All right, well for my funny album selection, we're talking about Flight of the Concords
and their self-titled debut full length from 2008 Flight of the Concords.
So the Concords are made up of multi-intermentalist Brent McKenzie and Jermaine Clement.
(05:29):
What are their rap names?
The Rhyme Nostrils and the Hip Hop Apotomy.
Noice Don impressed.
I knew they were large mammals, but I wasn't 100% sure.
So they are from Wellington, New Zealand.
Are you guys familiar with the kind of like comedic stylings of New Zealand?
Yes.
Kind of have a very dry sense of humor, I guess I would say, self-deprecating kind of
(05:54):
stuff.
Yeah.
But it's a unique position in the world geographically, which I think would create a very different
type of awareness of your own culture.
Yeah, that's a recurring joke on the show that they're sort of like little brother to
Australia.
People always mistake them for Australian.
Yes, I make that mistake a lot.
(06:15):
All right, so the album Flight of the Concords, the songs are pulled from the HBO TV series
Flight of the Concords, which is loosely based on the BBC radio program from 2005, Flight
of the Concords.
These guys have been kind of working on this material for quite a while.
Why don't we jump in here and play, this was the in the pilot episode of the HBO series.
(06:37):
This is called The Most Beautiful Girl in the Room.
They do this kind of funny thing in the TV series where the scene will be going along
normally and everything will just kind of stop and they'll do the music video kind of
(06:57):
around the actors in the scene, which I think works pretty well, especially in this case.
So everybody's kind of like frozen and they're just like singing around them and they're
not bad musicians, they have kind of a nice falsetto and I think what impressed me about
this album was they explore a lot of different genres, which I was not common in these style
albums.
It seems like the parody is more of the genres and the tropes within those genres than like
(07:24):
they're not parodying other songs.
It's the styles that they're parodying and they do it well.
They do it effectively, which is I think what makes this actually work.
And I assumed it was going to suck.
So.
Yeah, I think it works pretty well.
My clickbait headline for Flight of the Concords is no matter the country, medium or genre,
(07:45):
Brett and Jermaine can take a dumb situation, give it a beat and make you laugh.
These guys are pretty good about pulling comedy out of like pretty mundane situations or pretty
not seemingly very funny situations.
I appreciate that.
It's very dry humor, but I think it's just kind of like they're very overly honest about
themselves and they kind of overshare in every situation.
(08:08):
And it just leads to some funny circumstances and I think largely the music helps tell the
stories in the show and on the album here.
I think that's by far what they're best at.
I think what is interesting though is that even without the context of the show, which
I had seen bits and pieces of over the years, the album itself is still enjoyable.
You don't need the storyline for the songs to be funny and you may not know what the
(08:33):
storyline was, but it doesn't really matter.
They're still good.
Yeah.
The story does not seem very important at all.
Listen to the album.
Yeah.
So they go through different genres such as folk, pop, funk and hip hop.
When we play a cut here next, Inner City Pressure.
Well, Inner City Pressure appears in the second episode of the series called Brett Gives
(09:02):
Up the Dream.
And it's just about them kind of looking for a job and trying to make ends meet.
So the song is about the challenges of urban living, particularly for struggling artists.
It's quite clearly kind of a parody of West End Girls by the Pet Shop Boys.
It's not a direct parody as in like it's not taking the song and changing the lyrics, but
(09:24):
it's so clearly a Pet Shop Boys take.
So my clickbait headline for Flight of the Concords is, Clever Kiwi Comedians Take the
Cringe Out of Funny Music.
That's good.
Yeah.
I worry about these kinds of things.
I'm generally not drawn to parody music.
I mean, I was when I was a child.
(09:44):
But the songs are, I mean, they're well written, but they're funny.
They're not like I'm dying laughing funny, but they're clever and I don't know how to
explain it.
I mean, it's silly things that they say at times.
But what makes it funny, I think, is the context of the genre or the music they're representing.
You're expecting it to be serious and then they throw in these silly little references
(10:08):
to things and it throws you off.
It's like a little surprise.
So it's like, did I hear what I think I just heard?
Yeah.
Yeah, that's true.
And as Andy mentioned, I kind of like the self-deprecating approach of most of their
songs.
I think this works better in the context of a show where you have a story going on and
there's just a couple of songs that you hear.
(10:30):
As far as an album goes, I'm not going to listen to it more than a couple of times.
It's a novelty, as they say.
Yeah.
It's a novelty for sure.
But I think in the right context, maybe in a mixtape or on a road trip, maybe this would
be fun to sing along to if you really were a big fan.
Okay, let's hear another track from the record.
This is track four.
It's called Think About It.
(10:50):
I'm getting the knives and forks.
I'm trying to beat his own leg.
This song is really good.
Really good.
I'm getting the knives and forks.
I'm trying to beat his own leg.
This song saturizes the sincere protest songs, like What's Going On by Marvin Gaye, which
(11:14):
is what this reminded me of the most.
In the context of the episode, the one dude has his collar up and it's very much like
the cover of What's Going On and they're walking through the city.
But yeah, so it contrasts real social issues with absurd scenarios.
There's crime and violence, but instead of a knife, it's a knife and a fork that's stabbing
(11:35):
someone.
And then there's a diseased monkey.
Just some goofy guys.
Yes.
Again, the parody of the style was effective.
Like the tone of it is like, okay, I know what they're doing here.
And I clickbait headline to describe Flight of the Conchords.
Weird and inexplicably catchy.
Flight of the Conchords proved that comedy and music can coexist.
(11:59):
Not to get too far ahead of myself here, but this ain't Weird Al, right?
It's not sophomoric completely.
It is, but it isn't.
Yes.
It's the thinking man's sophomoric.
As much as this can be.
Yeah.
And they don't go the filthy route.
They use like nice sounding versions of dirty words.
(12:19):
I think that's refreshing.
And this was on HBO.
They could have said whatever they wanted to.
I think that adds to the humor.
It softens the edge of the parody when you don't go the easy route and use dirty words
and stuff.
Unlike Tenacious D.
Exactly.
The anti-Tenacious D. The humor is nuanced.
You kind of have to listen to catch it.
(12:40):
Yeah.
This was funny and funny by itself and then funny in the context.
I watched an episode of the show to get a sense of it and it was the one that featured
this song.
Yeah.
I don't think you need the show, but it helps.
It helps.
Yeah.
A demonstration of how good they are at their instruments and what kind of musicians they
are.
There is a live special on HBO.
(13:02):
I think it's called Live in London from like 2018, but it's a good watch.
It's only like an hour and a half.
That adds a lot.
The musicianship and the actual involvement in the composition matters for this type of
discussion.
When we're looking for good funny albums, I think them being true musicians and not
just a standup comedian doing a song about poop, it's...
(13:26):
That helps a lot when you have to listen to the record multiple times.
Yes.
Yes, it does.
For sure.
Yeah.
So if you're not familiar with the record or Fly the Concords, I think it's definitely
worth a listen.
They explore things that are like pop songs, kind of like pitbull style things.
There's like Indian style songs with like more like traditional Indian sounds.
(13:46):
There's a really funny song at the end of the record called Bowie, which has like different
versions of David Bowie talking to himself.
That's a good one.
Fly the Concords, whether you check out the TV show or the album or even the radio program,
I think they're all pretty funny and worth your time.
Before we continue on with our journey of ruffling, why don't we hear a little bit from
(14:10):
the front of the show, Pick A Disc.
Do you like music?
Do you like podcasts?
Chances are you like music podcasts.
Take this one for example, Pick A Disc, where every fortnight a guest comes on to talk about
an album for whatever reason they want to.
Sometimes I like it, sometimes perhaps even something else other than just like it.
You just listen to the podcast and find out.
We talk about the album, we talk about the songs, we talk about the artists, we talk
about tangent things that are slightly related and sometimes we deviate off tangents.
(14:34):
Don't worry, we always bring it back in the end.
But you can find us at all your social medias and all the podcast apps for searching for
Pick A Disc.
You can also find us on the part of the Weedig Podcast Network under Linktree slash Weedig
Podcasts.
Until then, happy listening to all those discs that you are picking.
Goodbye.
He's actually on a roll lately because of course I guest starred in an episode where
(14:57):
we talked about Depeche Mode Violator.
I recently did the Cure Songs of a Lost World and the latest one has The The Dusk.
Oh my gosh.
Don Takeover there it sounds like.
Donnie Likey.
All right, so my pick for a funny album comes from Weird Al Yankovic from February of 1984.
(15:21):
It's called Weird Al Yankovic in 3D.
It's the second studio album by Weird Al Yankovic born Alfred Matthew Yankovic in Downey, California
in 1959.
The album is built around parodies and pastiche.
You're trying to make this sound like more fancy than it is.
(15:41):
It's a bunch of songs about baloney and stuff.
Yeah.
So yeah, they're parodies of pop music of the mid 1980s.
Half of the songs are like direct parodies, right?
Where he's basically just changing lyrics of songs and the others are style parodies,
kind of more similar to what we just talked about with Flight of the Conchords.
Here is the big one, Eat It.
That was weak.
(16:07):
Japan, not where people say kids are starving.
That's right.
It rhymes.
Yeah, there isn't a cereal that rhymes with Ethiopia.
So Eat It is obviously a parody of Michael Jackson's 1983 single Beat It and the lyrics
(16:31):
are changed to be about a parent attempting to get a picky child to eat anything at all.
Grown.
Yeah.
I mean, some of it's pretty clever.
As I'm listening through to these songs, I'm like, oh, that's kind of funny.
It goes in places you don't expect.
Apparently Michael Jackson thought it was funny and agreed to allow the parody.
(16:53):
I heard it correctly, so this was the beginning of the downfall of Michael Jackson after the
song was parodied.
At the time I was a little kid, but I was a huge Michael Jackson fan and I took offense
to this.
Personal offense.
Yeah.
I was like, who would want to listen to this instead of the real song?
The video was quite funny, you know, because he was wearing the Michael Jackson.
(17:15):
The video was great.
I was like, what?
Instead of fighting with switch blades and stuff, they're doing knives and forks and
stuff.
Of course, in Beat It, the guitar solo is done by Eddie Van Halen.
In this case, it's actually done by Rick Derringer who you might know from Rock and Roll, Hoochie
Coo and that Hulk Hogan real American song.
Yeah, he produced the album and several of Weird Al's albums.
(17:40):
Anyway, Mike Lickbait headline for Weird Al Yankovic in 3D is Yankovic Cement's Legacy
as the parody artist.
I think Weird Al is sort of synonymous with parody songs.
I think this is really when he hit.
He kind of took it over from the old school 60s and 70s parody stuff were more vaudevillian
(18:04):
in a way.
He reestablished it as a viable way to make money in the music industry.
This one's a little different from his first album, which featured a lot of accordion,
basically accordion going along with every track.
On this one, the backing music is pretty true to the original records.
Yeah, let's hear some more.
This is Polkas on 45.
(18:26):
You're my woman, got my mojo right then.
Mr. Mojo right then.
Yeah, so that includes a series of classic rock songs rewritten as polka tunes.
There's like 20 of them or something in there.
Yeah, in like three or four minutes, right?
Yes, felt longer, but yes, three or four minutes.
(18:48):
So yeah, the juxtaposition of the original songs with the polka music was taken very
seriously by Lawrence Welk and other artists.
But like LA Woman and Hey Jude are stripped of their coolness.
Yes, they are.
Hey Joe, gonna shoot my old lady.
(19:12):
So the medley also includes traditional polka songs like Beer Barrel Polka and Clarinet
Polka, which pretty much it seems like the trick is put polka at the end of any words
and that's a polka song.
Yeah, so my clickbait headline to describe in 3D, the album that divides people, either
(19:35):
you're laughing or wondering how this ever got released.
There's little middle ground for Weird Al, people either like, ugh, so stupid or they
love it.
I'm kind of in that so stupid camp.
However, I'm not totally immune.
I mean, I liked the movie UHF that he made.
(19:55):
I enjoyed the album even worse in 1987.
Of course, I was reading Mad Magazine at that period of my life.
So a buddy loaned it to me and loaned the album to me and I listened to it a bunch of
times for a couple of weeks and then I got bored with it.
So I had my dalliance.
He seems like a cool guy.
I respect what he does.
(20:16):
I just don't really like listening to it.
The humor is very Mad Magazine.
I just don't like Weird Al like I used to, okay?
Ouch!
I mean, like a song here or there is fun to hear, but a whole album is no bueno.
Well, let's hear the closing cut on the record.
(20:40):
This is the epic Nature Trail to Hell.
This is one of three originals from in 3D about a fictional horror movie.
I'd be lying if I wasn't humming that to myself over the last few days.
(21:02):
It is pretty catchy as idiotic as it is.
It's got this great kind of hidden moment in it where there's a backwards passage that
says Satan eats cheese whiz about two thirds of the way through the record.
I mean, stuff like that as like a 12, 13 year old boy would just be like comedy gold.
(21:23):
I mean, that's like all you could ask for.
As a 40 year old, maybe not quite as appealing.
I clicked the headline for in 3D is one thing is for sure, no matter the number of dimensions,
Ale always brings the weird.
I haven't heard a lot of his discography, but I would say the wrong records I've heard,
this is fairly listenable.
I think it's a big step forward from his debut, which I think is maybe not very listenable
(21:46):
at least for me.
This is much more tight, inventive, pretty fun.
I mean, I think the least enjoyable part for me is his vocal.
It's so easily and just strained and that part gets hard for me to listen to for 45
minutes straight.
Lyrics are funny and it's all done with a good sense of humor.
He's like his personality.
I think he's just kind of a funny guy.
I wish it was more meat to the satire.
(22:09):
Like there's not beyond the base joke and we're not talking about what the original
song is about.
There's nothing really going on in terms of like developing a theme or an idea during
the course of the verses.
The compositions, either they're close, you know, as close as I can get to direct copies
of what they're parodying or then the original compositions are not musical enough for me.
(22:33):
It doesn't sound like much care was put into the music.
It's more about talking about spaghetti or whatever.
Yeah.
It kind of feels like a wedding band kind of level of quality.
Like it's not bad by any means, but it's fairly paint by numbers, I guess.
I keep, I can go back to like, who is this made for?
Like who's buying these records?
Is it like?
Me, back when I was seven.
(22:56):
He has a fan base of adults that grew up on him that still love it and love the, I guess
the live shows are quite entertaining and different props and costume changes and stuff
like that.
So I don't know.
It's definitely special.
It's just too special for me.
It is very impressive that he's been doing this relevant for as many decades as he has.
(23:21):
I mean, not alone is pretty rare in music.
Yeah.
So when you talk about parody music, Weird Al is generally the first name that comes
out.
So check out Weird Al Yankovic in 3D.
Excuse me.
I'd like to ask you a few questions.
It's time again for Deep Questions by Don.
(23:43):
All right, so as I said, you know, I used to really be in the Weird Al when I was a kid
and you know, these days I don't like it quite as much.
What did you used to think was funny, but not so much anymore?
Yeah, it's like an interesting question, Don.
I was in high school.
One of the more popular things for boys my age were these like prank phone call albums
(24:04):
that were coming out.
Like primarily the Jerky Boys was like everything in my high school for some reason.
I guess I thought it was funny then.
I don't really find the prank stuff very funny at all nowadays.
And I feel like there's a lot of like really toxic pranking ongoing on YouTube and TikTok
and stuff.
And fake pranking too.
Sometimes it's so clearly staged and the reactions are so funny, but people still buy into it
(24:30):
and then they try to recreate those with their family and friends and people get hurt.
Yeah, or people get like seriously injured or like really do terrible things to each
other.
That's not that great.
Prank culture.
Prank culture.
See ya.
What about you, dude?
So just one silly thing from probably around the same time that I thought Weird Al was
(24:52):
fun to listen to, the Garbage Pail Kids.
Oh yeah, like trading cards?
Yeah, the trading cards.
I thought those were hilarious, like snotty lotty and it's just a girl covered in mucus.
Dana Druff or Dana Druff or something.
Yeah, so I mean it was basically for those that haven't seen it, it was a trading card
(25:15):
series and it was these cartoon characters that looked a lot like Cabbage Patch Kids,
but gross stuff was happening to them or...
Yeah.
And then they had gross names and stuff.
Yeah, I thought that was hilarious.
They were like the Weird Al of Cabbage Patch Kids.
Yes, exactly.
Well, and they were kind of a spinoff of, I think they were called Wacky Packs or something.
Yeah, but a piece of dry gum came in the pack of cards and...
(25:36):
Nice.
Yeah, I thought those were hilarious and I used to draw my own as well.
Really?
Yeah.
Wow.
I was quite into it for a couple of months probably and as kids do, you move on pretty
quickly but...
I had a school folder for I think Blasted Billy or Adam Baum or...
Do you ever see the live action movie?
No.
(25:56):
What?
Wow.
Wow.
Atrocious.
The puppets are so disgusting looking that it's like a horror film almost.
I'm kind of curious.
Yeah, it's like I think they're aliens or something.
I don't know.
They're trying to give them a backstory.
Yeah.
How about you, Don?
(26:16):
Well, I know humor changes over time and through decades and I can usually go back to things
from the 60s, 70s and 80s and even if I don't find it laugh out loud funny, I can sort of
appreciate why it was funny at the time, appreciate the context.
But I watched one of the Police Academy movies recently.
It did not hold up well but the biggest problem was that Bobcat Gold twait or whatever.
(26:42):
I remember thinking he was funny when I was 12 or 11 or whatever but I don't get the character.
Like a drunk Yoda?
Yeah.
And he kind of ruins that movie Scrooge with Bill Murray which is otherwise a pretty good
movie but he's the weakest part of that.
(27:03):
I have heard that he's gone on to like he doesn't do that character anymore and does
funny things.
So a lot of those 80s comedies in particular and I don't know about the Police Academy
per se but there were a lot of those that you go back and watch like Porkies and that
kind of stuff that are just like the behavior of the kids in that is deplorable.
(27:24):
It's not funny at all but at a different time.
Different times, yeah.
Well what do you think is not so funny anymore?
Let us know.
Hit us on Instagram and Facebook or leave a comment on our website AlbumNerds.com.
So my pick for a funny album is this is Spinal Tap, the soundtrack to the movie of the same
(27:48):
name and the fake band is Spinal Tap.
They're a fictional English heavy metal band.
It was created by American comedians and musicians Michael McKeon, Christopher Guest and Harry
Shearer and they portray these band members David St. Hubbins, Nigel Tufnel and Derek
Smalls.
It debuted in 1979 as a sketch on an ABC comedy TV show and rose to fame with the mockumentary
(28:12):
This is Spinal Tap.
Alright so why don't we kick it off with Big Bottom.
So this was released in 1984 and it's really a mock rock documentary about the absurdities
(28:39):
of the rock world and the lines that rock bands would push in that era with innuendo
and stuff and they take it one step further.
She was a fast machine, she kept her motor clean.
Yes.
But the soundtrack was co-written by Rob Reiner who's the director of the film and then the
three members of the band and cast and they played their own instruments and they wrote
(29:02):
these songs.
It sounds so close to what could have actually been happening in metal music at the time
especially when you consider this would have been more of a greatest hit.
There's a fake discography of like 10 albums that these songs are from, these songs are
featured in their live performances in the film.
(29:23):
My clickbait headline to describe the album, this is Spinal Tap because what's rock without
big balls, bigger bottoms and a complete lack of self-awareness.
It almost becomes what it poked fun at.
Like I said, it's so close to that line of sounding genuine.
The big bottom in particular reminds me of Big Balls by ACDC from 1976 where it's about
(29:47):
Cotillion's and rich people's balls but it's also about testicles.
The fact that that existed for real is mind boggling but the music's kind of all over
the place, they do hard rock, glam metal, jazz fusion, little reggae and it even sounds
progressive rock at times.
So it started as a joke and they actually built a loyal fan base of people who love
(30:11):
the music so who the fuck.
All right, why don't we get into the next song.
This one's a little more serious.
It's called Sex Bomb.
I love that in the movie, Derek Smalls is talking about how their songwriting has gotten
(30:37):
more mature and sex-firing for instance.
Yeah, where it's just about the human sexuality.
Yeah, sex-firing there.
It doesn't really have any profanity in it but somehow it is so incredibly vulgar and
over the top.
Every time it just kind of stops me in my tracks listening to this album.
(31:02):
But they sell it, they 100% do sell it.
I don't know how they walk that line, that thin line.
Well I think it's that rock artist ego that we know that they're tapping into that where
people think they're creating these incredibly deep things and that they're artists and musicians
(31:22):
but really it's just catching in on dirty stuff.
Yeah, everything that touches gold in this movie.
I mean to some degree I guess that is kind of gold.
Comedy golds.
Heyo.
I think as an album this holds up fairly well.
I think a lot of it is owed to that sort of variety of styles that they cover.
(31:43):
This is kind of like a best-grace hit sort of thing from their career.
There's a handful of songs, sex-firing among them, that I think maybe go a little too far
over the line of kind of giving up the illusion that this could be a real band.
Big Bottoms is the only one.
Stonehenge I think is just so silly.
It's so silly.
I love that one.
(32:03):
Well that one's supposed to be tapping more into the iron maideny sort of myths and mystical...
Yeah.
And you could kind of buy that but then the details, it's too silly for me.
But there are a handful of songs on here that I think do work pretty well.
For fans of Kiss or similar bands I think this would be kind of right up your alley.
(32:25):
My clickbait headline for This Is Spinal Tap is Rob Reiner and crew take the mockumentary
genre up to 11.
Couldn't they just make 10 the highest?
No, see this goes beyond that.
They made...
But this goes to 11.
I mean they really do.
They did really perfected the formula for what a mockumentary should be and I think
(32:48):
this is kind of the blueprint for sure.
The songs support it really well.
I believe that these songs are funny on their own but really watching the movie or being
familiar with it and seeing them in the context of their travels on this ill-fated tour makes
them feel more real.
And I believe the movie is necessary for this to have its full impact.
(33:10):
I think you're right, man.
For Stonehenge I just picture those little tiny rocks coming down out of the rafters
and little people dancing around us.
I mean it's so historical.
Apparently that prop debacle from the film was inspired by a real life mistake during
Black Sabbath's 1983 tour but only in reverse.
They had an oversized set that wouldn't fit on the stage.
(33:33):
Oh for real?
I don't know about that.
The prop had an undersized set that was ridiculous.
Yeah, that looks even funnier.
All right well why don't we get into one of the songs that harkens back to the earlier
days of the tap, Listen to the Flower People.
What the flower people say.
Ah, this song.
(33:55):
It's getting louder every day.
Yeah so in the fictional world of This is Spinal Tap, this was supposedly released in
1967 during the summer of love.
I'm not sure if they, it's not clear whether they're Spinal Tap at that point or if they're
still the Thamesmen.
I think they are the tap by this point and Derek Smalls had joined the band by this point.
(34:16):
Oh okay.
Thank you for clarifying those important historical details.
There's a website that has the entire Spinal Tap timeline.
When they were fake born, when they fake got together, all of it.
So yeah, the song supposedly represents their attempt to capitalize on the popular counter
culture movement at the time.
(34:37):
So it's clearly a parody of psychedelic rock and that flower power movement of the late
1960s.
I kind of like it because it's realistic.
You have a lot of those metal bands in the 70s and 80s or rock bands.
They came from different places and they were making goofy music in the 1960s.
(34:58):
One of my clickbait headline is this is Spinal Tap works on screen as well as your boom box.
I agree that the songs make more sense in the context of the film, but it still works.
I actually enjoyed this week listening to these songs and you do catch a lot more of
the lyrics that you might not notice when you're watching the film.
(35:19):
Yeah.
But it really just is a testament to how great a film it is.
Musicians, bands, they all love it.
So they really, I think, sort of captured that, I don't know, I guess what life on the
road can be like for bands, even if they're satirizing it.
Yeah.
I mean, there's some other songs on here like Heavy Duty.
It's about exaggerating strength and power.
(35:40):
Heavy duty.
Heavy duty rock and roll.
Drop a duty on your soul.
Yeah, but duty being D-U-T-Y, like the work that your soul has to do to support this music.
It's not about poo poo.
But yeah, rock and roll creation, I think is funny.
Give me some money is when they were still the Thamesman.
So that's more of a Beatle-y kind of thing.
(36:02):
So yeah, they fill in the history of it so convincingly that when I was a kid, I thought
they were real until I grew up enough to see the movie and go, oh, those are actors that
I recognize.
This album really does blend satire and rock music.
It turns those absurdities of fame and excess into an unforgettable, funny album experience.
(36:22):
So these songs have been stuck in my head.
So why don't you go check out?
This is Spinal Tap.
Can you dig it?
Can you dig it?
Can you dig it?
Well, we've been yucking it up all week.
Did you get down to any serious music?
What are you guys digging?
I got a couple of picks here in my comedic prop trunk.
(36:47):
First one for me is from hip hop artists from Brooklyn, New York.
This is actually kind of a sad story here.
The artist's name is Ka.
He put on an album back in October called The Thief Next to Jesus.
Unfortunately, he passed away in mid-October at the age of 52.
So this is his last known recorded material.
Let's play the opening cut Breadwine, Body Blood.
(37:08):
I actually did listen to this at some point.
I've really enjoyed it a lot.
It's got a lot of gospel samples, a lot of religious imagery.
I think it's a pretty strong call to action in the album.
Is it all drawn out, like his lyrics like that?
Are they slow?
Yeah, very slow, poetic delivery.
I like it.
Yeah, I like him a lot.
He's got an underrated credit to The Neel Drop.
(37:30):
He's a big proponent of him.
But yeah, sadly, he passed away.
The other one for me is from Father John Misty, who we talked about on the show, I think earlier
this year at one point.
He has a new record out called Mahashmashana.
I believe that's how you would say it.
It's his sixth studio album.
Let's play I Guess Time Just Makes Fools of Us All.
So you went with a hip hop album with religious overtones and then you go to a guy with a
(37:57):
name with religious overtones.
Father John Misty.
Yeah, weirdly, that's the funnier record is the Father John one.
Less smirk in the soul than I would say some of his previous work.
A lot more melody.
He's actually singing pretty well and there's a couple of catchy moments on here.
I was surprised.
That was kind of disco-y, that rhythm.
Yeah, he really expands his sonic palette here.
(38:19):
Father John Misty, pretty good stuff.
What you been digging on, Don?
Well, it's been out for a couple of years, but I finally got to it.
There's a documentary about Sid Barrett called Have You Got It Yet?
The Story of Sid Barrett and Pink Floyd.
So as most of you know, Sid Barrett was the original front man of Pink Floyd.
So the film was directed by Roddy Bagawe and Storm Thurgerson from Hypnosis.
(38:44):
Those are the guys that were responsible for a lot of the album covers of Pink Floyd and
others.
But Sid Barrett is a tragic story, basically.
This guy that was really innovative in the psychedelic world.
He sort of succumbed to mental illness.
Definitely a good film to check out.
(39:04):
And then also a band called Mat Pond P.A. Have you guys ever heard of Mat Pond P.A.?
Sounds familiar, yeah.
Is that a town in Pennsylvania?
I still don't understand the title of the band, but it does have a guy named Mat Pond
in it, singer-songwriter.
But they're from Philadelphia, so I guess that's the P.A. part of it.
(39:25):
They have a new album coming out, The Ballad of the Natural Lines, which was due out in
February.
Here's the title track, The Ballad of the Natural Lines.
Man, I know I didn't hear much of it, but it reminds me a little bit of Cracker or something
like that, that era.
Cool.
Got a couple of albums bookmarked here coming out this year from you, Don.
(39:46):
Exciting.
All right.
Well, what about you, dude?
I went back to the 2024.
Well, this album that I'm about to talk about was number 10 on my list for the year.
It's Opeth with The Last Will and Testament.
Came out towards the end of the year.
We get a chance to talk about it on the show, so why don't we kick off with a little bit
of one.
(40:06):
Is that what it says?
The little symbol next to the one is a, means paragraph, I guess.
So paragraph one, but all the songs are just numbers except for the last one.
It's supposed to be Opus with a lisp.
(40:27):
So The Last Will and Testament is the 14th studio album by Swedish progressive metal
band, Opus.
It's a return to their death metal roots with the ground vocals for the first time since
2008.
It's been wrestling up those vocal chords for a long time.
But it's an intricate concept set in post-World War I, unraveling dark family secrets through
(40:51):
this testament style narrative of reading of this will and some secrets about the family
come out.
It's a bit of a slog at first, but the concept helps carry you through.
Once you get through a couple of listens, I thought it was a really great album, but
my first listen I was like, I don't know.
So go check that out if you have a few hours.
The next one up I finally did pick up on vinyl just a few weeks ago.
(41:15):
This was number two on my list for favorite albums of the year.
We did talk about it at the midpoint of the year when we were doing a new release show.
It's the Black Crowes, Happiness Basterds.
Here's a little bit of wanting and waiting.
So this was their first new material since 2009's Before the Frost, Until the Freeze.
(41:39):
It sounds like the Black Crowes, like classic.
It does.
Exactly what you want.
And they nail it.
They sound better than they have in a long time.
And I love it.
I think it's a great record.
Among their best, in my opinion, in their discography.
So go check that one out.
And the vinyl I have is just a plain black, but there are some cool album art.
(41:59):
Like when you open the record, where you put the record sleeve in, there's actually some
printed artwork inside that too.
So they have a few little secrets in the packaging.
Nice.
All right.
So what are you digging?
Let us know.
Join us on the socials, Facebook, Instagram, threads, Blue Sky.
Also on our website, albumnerds.com.
It will be a discovery of extraordinary value.
(42:25):
Well, it's about that time on the show and I'm reminded of the great American comic and
actor Steve Martin, who said, talking about music is like dancing about architecture.
Very true, Steve.
Very true.
With that in mind, let's bring out my friend and yours, Wodbot, and see what we'll be talking
(42:45):
about on next week's episode.
Get ready to dive into the world of controversial albums.
Next time, you will be exploring three records that sparked debates, pushed boundaries, and
shook the music world, proving that art isn't always about playing it safe.
(43:09):
Controversial albums.
That should be interesting.
Potentially dangerous.
Can I just do Prince's controversy?
I'm not sure how controversial it was, but it's got the name.
Yeah.
Time to get scandalous, guys.
What's your favorite controversial album?
What else are you listening to?
Email us at podcast at albumnerds.com.
Also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, threads, and bluesky at albumnerds.com.
(43:32):
And visit albumnerds.com to suggest topics for the show, peruse the Hall of Fame, and
listen to all 274 episodes.
The best way to support the show is to share it.
Please subscribe, rate, and review on your favorite podcast app.
Thank you once again for joining us on the Album Nerds podcast.
We'll go from funny to deadly serious on the next episode when we talk about controversial
(43:54):
albums.
Awesome.
Thanks for listening, everybody.
See you next week.
Try the rye or the Kaiser or the wheat or the white.
Maybe I can suggest an appetizer.
Can you at least do Living with a Hernia?
I don't remember the word.
Living with a Hernia.
That's the one.
(44:14):
Gonna have an operation.
Okay, okay.
Boy oh boy.
So silly.
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