This album is a sequel to the mashup album Mouth Sounds and in my opinion is the better of the two. But Mouth Sounds is legendary in its own right. On the surface, this is a "jokey" or "comedy" album, but in reality this is actually the most artful album since Dark Side of the Moon (an album I've never heard, nor have any opinion on). Also fair warning, this album is an hour long.
We shall start - as most good things do - at the beginning. The album opens with the odd and jumbled sound of "Goodbye". Using samples of Third Eye Blind's "Semi Charmed Life", and ethereal synths Neil sets the stage for an odd and unique sounding album. This is a weird opener in that there's no joke, it's just music, but I think it's actually perfect. I think it shows that while this is a mashup album, it's also an album that has heaps of musical talent behind it. And before you know it we're onto track two.
"Rollercloser" is not one of my favorites but it is a damn earworm. This track chiefly uses "Love Rollercoaster" and NINs "Closer". The fun in this song is using the super serious Nine Inch Nails track over the fun and bouncy "Love Rollercoaster". Along with the interjections from "Jungle Boogie", this is a fun track.
What follows is the first of two tracks that samples news clips. "Furries" is a lil ditty parodying(?) furry culture. This one is also not one of my favorites but uses Hanson's "MMMBop" as the backing for Jimmy Hendrix's "Foxy" and my god if it is not perfect. With little bits of "What does the Fox say?" this song really tells a tail. (See what I did there? Tail. Because the song is about furries.) Next track.
The next track, "Friends", is only ten seconds but it's a perfect musical joke. The restraint Neil has to not go any further with the joke is admirable. This is also a good point to mention that this track has perfect transitions. Almost every song leads into the next and the transitions go fast, I love it.
"Best" is up next, and this is absolutely one of my favorites. The idea is to use as many songs that feature the word "best" and it is joyful cacophony. If you listen to one song, listen to "Best". This song is so dense. With all the samples and instrumentation with cartoony sound effects thrown in, there is always something fun happening in this track. Also the ending is a perfect set up for track six.
"Pokemon" consists exclusively of news clips backed by the Jackson Five's "I Want You Back". This song has the least amount of music going on, but is still impressive with how the news clips work as lyrics. This track is, dare I say, deeper than just a funny mashup. This collection of news clips that demonize a children's trading card game is just ridiculous. News anchors call Pokemon "A world order", "Demonic", "Violent" it's so crazy and having all of it playing togethor in one place back by the cheery Jackson Five shows how stupid the Pokemon worry was/is. Also, at the end of this track Neil uses anchors saying "Pokemon" over and over as lyrics and it fits perfectly.
Okay I gotta start speeding through these cause I'm at 7/19. "Sexual Lion King" is officially my favorite version of "Can you feel the love tonight, it is far superior to the Grammy Award Winning version.
"Crocodile Chop" is one of the more famous tracks of this album, and is in the vein of "Rollercloser" with it's super serious lyrics and fun, bouncy backing.
Transmission is weird, skip it. There's probably something interesting going on, but it mucks up the pace of the album, in this man's opinion.
"Love Psych" is one of the greatest tracks on this thing. It's "Love Shack" and the theme from Psycho. It's phenomenal.
"Orgonon Girls" gets off to a slow start but gets pretty groovy a third of the way in.
"Born to Cat" is short and entertaining enough, but is near the bottom in my track ranking (if that existed).
"What is It" takes the "serious vocals, fun music" to a wackier level by speeding up the vocals to have the "chipmunk effect". It's fun. "Quotation marks".
"It's" is similar to "Born to Cat" short and pretty entertaining, but not outstanding.
"Close to the Sun" is the good version of "It's" and "Born to Cat".
"Numbers" is a great track. This song uses as a bunch of tracks that reference phones, and has a spectacular bridge type thing towards the end.
"Space Monkey Mafia" is very fun.
"Wndrwll" is amazing, hilarious and incredibly well done. After the first chorus, he reverses every word of the song. Listen to this track. Oh my god, listen to it.
"Piss" is a juvenile wrap up featuring some great usage of samples to make the singers say really dumb things.
Sorry this got so brief, but this is a looooong album. It's a silly album, but it is actually rather interesting and nuanced and probably took a lot of work. And that work really really shows. Some may argue that this is dumb. But so is the Mona Lisa.
That's right, I'm comparing this mashup album to the Mona Lisa. What are you gonna do about it?
