Grace (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} celestialblendr) wrote,@ 2009-02-17 18:08:00 |
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More Human Than Human
Flight of the Conchords likes to claim that they are the fourth most popular acoustic folk-comedy duo in New Zealand, and that one of the groups ahead of them is a Flight of the Conchords tribute band. Now, self-deprecating satire, wherein you take some aspect of pop music down with you—whether a particular song, a performer or simply an archetype—is nothing new. Weird Al has been making a high-profile career out of it since the early 1980s. However, recently there's been an interesting development in the field of parody: The parodies are better than what they're satirizing.
The thought occurred to me a few months ago after seeing SNL's "Jizz In My Pants" bit. Not only was it a quality blend of humor and boom, it put itself musically on par with a large number of overly serious dance songs—without the seriousness. However, what really confirmed the idea was, again, Flight of the Conchords. In their second season, they've moved a little farther out from being merely an acoustic comedy duo. They appear to be writing more for TV than for stage, which is unsurprising, and the last few episodes I've seen (which, since I watch them by intertube, means very little in relation to their actual air date) have seen them also veering into clubby electronics. Most notable here is their "Sugalumps" song (mp3 below). This song is, essentially, "My Humps" with two exceptions: 1) It's about man-lumps; 2) It doesn't completely blow. I will never entirely understand why "My Humps" got popular. I don't think the ironic audience is quite that far reaching. It's possible that people spent all that time listening to it trying to figure out why the hell it was there; it spent the entire time explicating how certain bulbous regions were appealing in ways that made them sound specifically unappealing. I can only suppose that the song was popularized by the far-right abstinence-only lobby which clearly has a seat at Clear Channel. "Sugalumps" on the other hand, is silly, effervescent and pleasantly stupid. However, it's also a better song than "My Humps" by just about any metric: It's sonically less grating and doesn't make the globular body parts in question significantly less appealing. Part of it is the superficial tongue-in-cheekness of of the thing, but measured on the same factors, it's simply a better song.
Of course, "better" here is measured on the scale with other club-dance songs, which is a fairly different scale than most music. Sure, they're all judged against how well they succeed at what they set out to do, but in terms of dance music, this has more to do with moving lumps than being moving. There's any number of reasonable explanations about why this might be, but for now let's salute the satirist who can beat the straight man at his own game.
Flight of the Conchords - Sugalumps (MP3)
Flight of the Conchords likes to claim that they are the fourth most popular acoustic folk-comedy duo in New Zealand, and that one of the groups ahead of them is a Flight of the Conchords tribute band. Now, self-deprecating satire, wherein you take some aspect of pop music down with you—whether a particular song, a performer or simply an archetype—is nothing new. Weird Al has been making a high-profile career out of it since the early 1980s. However, recently there's been an interesting development in the field of parody: The parodies are better than what they're satirizing.
The thought occurred to me a few months ago after seeing SNL's "Jizz In My Pants" bit. Not only was it a quality blend of humor and boom, it put itself musically on par with a large number of overly serious dance songs—without the seriousness. However, what really confirmed the idea was, again, Flight of the Conchords. In their second season, they've moved a little farther out from being merely an acoustic comedy duo. They appear to be writing more for TV than for stage, which is unsurprising, and the last few episodes I've seen (which, since I watch them by intertube, means very little in relation to their actual air date) have seen them also veering into clubby electronics. Most notable here is their "Sugalumps" song (mp3 below). This song is, essentially, "My Humps" with two exceptions: 1) It's about man-lumps; 2) It doesn't completely blow. I will never entirely understand why "My Humps" got popular. I don't think the ironic audience is quite that far reaching. It's possible that people spent all that time listening to it trying to figure out why the hell it was there; it spent the entire time explicating how certain bulbous regions were appealing in ways that made them sound specifically unappealing. I can only suppose that the song was popularized by the far-right abstinence-only lobby which clearly has a seat at Clear Channel. "Sugalumps" on the other hand, is silly, effervescent and pleasantly stupid. However, it's also a better song than "My Humps" by just about any metric: It's sonically less grating and doesn't make the globular body parts in question significantly less appealing. Part of it is the superficial tongue-in-cheekness of of the thing, but measured on the same factors, it's simply a better song.
Of course, "better" here is measured on the scale with other club-dance songs, which is a fairly different scale than most music. Sure, they're all judged against how well they succeed at what they set out to do, but in terms of dance music, this has more to do with moving lumps than being moving. There's any number of reasonable explanations about why this might be, but for now let's salute the satirist who can beat the straight man at his own game.
Flight of the Conchords - Sugalumps (MP3)
