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Spinal Tap: Spinal tap
20/10/08 || Daemonomania
Let’s get this out of the way first – I will not be quoting any lines from the movie at any point during this review. If you haven’t seen the mockumentary “This is Spinal Tap,” it may be time for you to die. Don’t bother reading this review, just proceed to game over, no reset button. If you have seen it and are still alive as a result, you know that it was a hilarious spoof on hard rock and heavy metal, with a trio of moronic musicians (and a constantly open drummer spot, plus that fucken cracked out keyboardist) doing their best to play as loud and as dumb as possible.
However, the ‘Tap blurred lines between mockumentarism (!) and reality by actually releasing two full-length albums. The question, like all joke albums, is how quickly the joke wears thin. And how good the music is, but that is why we write reviews here at GD. To answer that question once and for always. If a disc gets a bad review here it is forever cast into the Realm of the Great Shitake Mushroom.
Bad reviews at GD automatically cut album sales in half, cause labels to go out of business, and make band members spontaneously combust. In fact, the possibility of this review being written in the future caused one of many ill-fated Spinal Tap drummers to perish in such a manner. We are that powerful. Sometimes I lay awake at night thinking about the vast influence we wield.
So if you’ve seen the film and remember small snippets of the songs throughout, you’ll remember they have a traditional, late ‘70’s early ‘80’s vibe. The bands they seem to be making fun of are primarily Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, and Black Sabbath. When you sit down and listen to the whole thing, I get the feeling they’re mostly aiming at Sabbath. I could be wrong (unlikely), but the production that focuses on a heavy, powerful bass, somewhat hollow drums, and a thinner guitar tone comes across as very early Sabbath to me. Of course, early Sabbath is a million times more sexcellent and no matter what no muthafucka says Ozzy was a talented vocalist. “St. Hubbins” is not.
That’s probably my biggest complaint overall – the vocals are not anything to pen a missive to your domicile about. The dude is certainly having a good laugh, but he ain’t got a great set of pipes. When Tufnel does the higher backing vocals things do get a bit better, but we still aren’t talking about Halford here. Second complaint is that a lot of the songs are pretty simple and repetitive, but I’m assuming that is part of the joke.
On the other six fingered hand (I just made a Christopher Guest film reference and no rewards will be given for the right answer) there is a lot to like about the blacker than black album. The joke does not wear thin overall. The Queen-like “Big bottom” has gotta have some of the best fat chick lines ever penned, “Stonehenge” and “Listen to what the flower people say” always make me laugh, and for some reason the line about “brings out the duty in my soul!” tickles my funnypenis relentlessly. Plus there’s a good amount of variety on here – like I said “Big bottom” is keyboard driven and sounds kinda like “Another one bites the dust,” “Cups and cakes” is a gay little Cream-style interlude, “Stonehenge” and “Rock and roll creation” are epics, and “America” is a ballady type thing. Don’t forget the duo at the end of “Flower people,” a funny hippie track full of generic peace and love lyrics plus the Animals/Rolling Stones white blues track “Gimmie some money.” The rest are straight ahead proto-metal rockers.
There you go. If you love the film you should have it. If you like the foundations of metal like Deep Purple, the Zep, and Sabbath then you’ll like it too. Just don’t expect amazing vocals or stunning songwriting. The temptation to finish this thing up with a movie quote is almost overpowering, but my self-discipline shall be my savior.
7 out of 10 album covers Metallica wish they had made.
- Information
- Released: 1984
- Label: Polydor
- Website: Spinal Tap MySpace
- Band
- David St. Hubbins: vocals, guitar
- Derek Smalls: bass
- Various, deceased: drums
- Nigel Tufnel: guitars
- Tracklist
- 01. Hell Hole
- 02. Tonight I’m Gonna Rock You Tonight
- 03. Heavy Duty
- 04. Rock And Roll Creation
- 05. America
- 06. Cups and Cakes
- 07. Big Bottom
- 08. Sex Farm
- 09. Stonehenge
- 10. Gimme Some Money
- 11. (Listen to the) Flower People
