(Capitol, 1957)Now, I’m a fun-lovin’ youngster who busts the occasional gut over novelty records both old and new, but this Stan Freberg disc, which exists musically/conceptually somewhere between Weird Al and Culturcide, just does not in any way DO it for me. The targets of Stan’s skull-smashing wit here are those twin, satire-demanding, late-50s devils that were, yep, you GUESSED it… beatniks and TV. So yeah. If a start-stop version of “Banana Boat” featuring a too-chilled bongo player, and a mildly-offensive calypso accent-abuse ditty about the brainlessness of the telly (“Tele-Vee-Shun”) don’t sound quite like your cup of piss, take my word for it that they AREN’T. And I admit that I’m probably being unfair, since 50 years have passed and, sure, maybe this shit was timely as the second-hand back in’57, but heck… that’s neither my fault nor my problem, world of grampses. Look, you: I’ll take my yuks – all several of them – elsewhere.
1 comment:
Wow! I seem to recall hearing this Banana Boat thing back there on some Dr. Demento hour, or possibly even earlier in my listening adventures, but, like, y'know Daddy-O, it was deadsville by the time I heard it.
But it is a teaching tool: you can tell how much the Beats were needed when you see the level of humor aimed at them.
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