{"id":41775,"date":"2009-11-10T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-11-10T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/told-you-i-was-freaky\/"},"modified":"2009-11-10T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-11-10T00:00:00","slug":"told-you-i-was-freaky","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/told-you-i-was-freaky\/","title":{"rendered":"Told You I Was Freaky"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s not the pathetic bardic lifestyle or posh New Zealand<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region> accents that make Flight Of The Conchords and the soundtrack to their HBO sitcom a hoot. It\u2019s the way these two lovestruck buffoons compose serious, genre-spanning musical arrangements to contrast the silliness of their lyrics. There\u2019s an undeniable merit to all of the tomfoolery, and that includes the far-out Prince-worthy electro-pop of the title track, where the Conchords make love to a cake tin to prove how freaky they are.<\/p>\n

Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie\u2019s knowledge of music must be rather encyclopedic, as they ape various genres and artists ranging from the \u201860s to contemporary pop. \u201cYou Don\u2019t Have To Be A Prostitute\u201d is an obvious \u2013 and great \u2013 spoof of the Police\u2019s \u201cRoxanne,\u201d complete with hackneyed reggae embellishments and a spot-on Sting-like battle cry. \u201cRambling Through The Avenues Of Time\u201d parodies Bob Dylan\u2019s early coffeehouse folk, and \u201cSugalumps\u201d makes a worthy male equivalent to the Black Eyed Peas\u2019 unfairly maligned \u201cMy Humps.\u201d But where Fergie justly proclaimed the globosity of her lady lumps, the Conchords are hilariously unaware that girls really aren\u2019t checking out the front of their pants.<\/p>\n

And just like Michael Scott on The Office<\/i>, that earnest obliviousness is what keeps the Conchords\u2019 humor from becoming stale after more than a few listens. On their eponymous TV show, Bret and Jemaine aren\u2019t just mediocre troubadours, they\u2019re mediocre troubadours with feelings. Hurt <\/i>feelings, as they make clear in the album\u2019s first song. \u201cSome people say that rappers don\u2019t have feelings,\u201d Bret laments over a pseudo-urban groove, satirizing the defensive nature of most rappers. The song ends with Jemaine saying, \u201cThese are the bulletproof 24-karat tears of a rapper.\u201d <\/p>\n

Their futile attempts to pick up ladies after open mic night is almost identical to the awkward situational humor Greg Daniels mines in The Office<\/i>. When Jemaine and Bret argue over whom an attractive woman\u2019s lazy eye was checking out, it\u2019s not that far in inanity from a conversation between Dwight and Andy about the new female receptionist. This endearing lack of awareness \u2013 coupled with a proximity to real life \u2013allows them to transcend the novelty of their schtick, something other jokester bands like Bowling For Soup haven\u2019t been able to do. When\u2019s the last time we\u2019ve heard from them?<\/p>\n

Things have stayed consistently funny throughout both seasons and soundtracks of their show, and now Bret and Jemaine are choosing between making one more season or a feature-length film. It\u2019s pretty unlikely that either choice will be a misstep, since they\u2019ve found their niche in the comedy world.<\/p>\n

I Told You I Was Freaky<\/i> is entertaining from beginning to end, even though there\u2019s nothing as comical as \u201cBusiness Time\u201d or eclectic as \u201cBowie<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>,\u201d both from their 2008 debut. The phallic abundance of \u201cToo Many Dicks (On The Dance Floor)\u201d is just as funny as it sounds, and the disarming image of copulating angels described in \u201cAngels\u201d is made even better by the ornate acoustic strumming. A perfect way to close an album that\u2019s so off-kilter and indeed (hilariously) freaky.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":78,"featured_media":30136,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[8487],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-41775","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-flight-of-the-conchords","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/78"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41775"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41775"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}