Flight of the Conchords = Comic Genii/Geniuses (Flight Of The Conchords - Flight Of The Conchords)

Member Name: Yzmarocks

Product:	Flight Of The Conchords - Flight Of The Conchords
Date:	30/08/09 (25 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Clever and insanely funny

Disadvantages: Not Long Enough!

Flight of the Conchords just has to be the forth most popular guitar-based digi-bongo acapella-rap-funk-comedy folk duo to have ever come out of kiwiland. Made up of Jermaine Clement and Bret McKenzie, this duo are hilariously funny and their songs are comic genius, if a little bizarre. These are what amde the tv show, and have developed a cult following worldwide:

This album is a collaboration of all the songs from their first television series, broadcast in America on HBO and in the UK on BBC 4.

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Foux du FaFa
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Don't try and translate this, it is nonsense (as is most of the song!). This track is composed of badly constructed french phrases such as 'Voila mon passport' (Here is my passport), 'Soup du jour' (soup of the day)and 'Bonjour mon petit bureau de change' (Hello my little bureau de change - speaking to a man). It culminates in a woman asking Jermaine where the swimming pool is (splish splosh?) and if he can speak French. To which he replies, 'non'. Even if you know only bonjour and au reviour, this song is still funny with its irresistable melody and "a-e-a's".

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Inner City Pressure
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This is a song about falling on hard times, having 'sold your chair' and finding that 'your favourite jersey is covered in lint'. It is performed in the style of the Pet Shop Boy's "West End Girls" and manages to incorporate not only muesli but also a concert flutist into one song. The classic Flight of the Conchord instrument, the synthesizer is one of the backing sounds, giving it an eighty's sound.

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Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros (feat. Rhymenocerous and the Hiphopopotamus)
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Bret and Jermaine's alter egos come out to play in this, possibly the funniest rap song of all time. The Hipopotamus (whose lyrics are bottomless) aka Jermaine and the Rhymenoceros (who raps about reality), aka Bret manage to construct a whole rap song without a single swear word which is a feat in itself. It is criminally funny for lines such as 'there ain't no party like my nana's tea party' and 'where did you get that perposterous hypothesis - did Steve tell you that?'.

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Think about it
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Here Bret and Jermaine manage to get across important issues such as AIDs, sweat shop labour, street violence and bullying in a funny way (if such a thing were possible). It also leads Jermaine to question his manhood, and all just to get Jermaine's camera phone back. Apparantly, during a 2007 interview they explained that this song was a birth child of the style of Marvin Gaye and The Black Eyed Peas song, "Where is the Love?". I have to say, I would like to hear more songs from this genre.

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Ladies of the World
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The is my second favourite song over 3 minutes on the album and is Bret and Jermaine trying to give something back to all the ladies of the world. It also brings up the sixties concept of making love not war - 'blondes not bombs'. A funky guitar with some piano create the backing track for Bret and Jermaine to cry out different types of ladies - Perisian, Republic of Dominican, Anphibian even, at one point, hermaphrodite.

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Mother 'Uckers
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This is the band's attempt to combat racism to heavy drum beat. The band try to be clean and hard at the same time with just sets up a wickidly funny song - 'he's going to wake up in a smoothie'

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Prince of Parties
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Bret and Jermaine take some acid and consequently sing this song whilst tripping. There is some psychodelic guitar and some classicly bizarre lyrics and includes a reference to Ravi Shankar, the Sitar guru. This is another flash back to the free and freewheeling sixties. A short but silly song: 'Where do you get your clothes?' 'They're made of snow, pretty party clothes, crocheted of snow'.

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Leggie Blonde
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Leggie Blonde (sometimes Leggy Blonde) wasn't one of my favourite to begin with but after a few replays, I learned to love it as much as the rest of the album. The story behind this song is that Murray (Bret and Jermaine's manage) has fallen for Jessica, the tech support lady, and trys to write a song about her. Unfortunatly her contract terminates and this is the resulting song. Bret and Jermaine provide backing vocals and percussion with various offical supplies.

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Robots (Humans are Dead)
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This has to be my favourite song over 3 minutes, perhaps even my favourite song on the whole album. This song is set in the distant future (aka the year 2000) where there are no more elephants or humans. This allows for Jermaine's amazing impression of Stephen Hawking and also contains the infamous lines: 'Affirmative, I poked one it was dead', 'Binary Solo' and 'Come on sucker lick my battery'. It makes you want to punch holes in a cardboardbox, put it on your head and sing along. Any song that makes you do that is a good one in my book.

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Boom
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And now for the unveiling of the ledgendary 1980s Casio DG20 digital guitar. This idea is simple: Bret has a crush on fellow sign holder, Coco
and decides to sing his feelings. The twist? Nearly every word in the song has been replaced with the word 'Boom'. With a fake mandolin in the background and a song in the style of Shaggy, it cannot fail to bring a smile to your face.

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A Kiss is Not a Contract (or K.I.S.S.I.N.G.)
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Here, Bret sings this song after his girlfriend, Lisa, wakes him up to try and coax, or surprise?, him into having sex with her. Bret, truely shocked, attempts to explain that kissing her didn't not necessarily mean that she was going to get to sleep with him, hence a kiss is not a contract. I love how innocent Bret is in this song and the lyrics are, again, hilarious.

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The Most Beautiful Girl (in the Room)
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This is a spoof of the classic Prince song, 'The Most Beautiful Girl (in the World) and was my first taste of the Conchords. This is another contender for my number one as it follows Jermaine as he tries to seduce the most beautiful girl in the room. Bret appears randomly throughout with backing vocals. Classic conchords, a definate five star song.

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Business Time
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Business time is my final contender for top song. Jermaine is fantasizes about married life with a girl named Sally. He calculates that Wednesday is the optimum night for love making. After brushing their teeth (foreplay) and taking out the recycling (not foreplay, but still very important), Jermaine gets down to business... time. Bret is also worryingly providing backing vocals throughout.

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Bowie
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After another one of Bret's surreal dreams about David Bowie, the two decide to sing a song about Bowie in Space. Another bizarre song but still fantastically funny: 'Does the cold of deep space make your nipples go pointy, Bowie?' 'Do you use your pointy nipples as telescopic antennae to transmit data back to earth?'. Only Flight of the Conchords.

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Au Reviour
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Au Reviour is the final song on the album and is just Bret and Jermanine saying goodbye their way.

Overall this album is amazing, surreal and side splittingly funny, I have recommended it to all of my friends and none of us are sick of it yet. Bring on more Conchords - can't wait until their next album, 'I Told You I Was Freaky', October 09

Summary: Buy it now!