Thursday, November 27, 2014

Songs Sung Like Poo: Neil Diamond Tragedies

You know my 'in queue' boxes are quite full when I can pair up tribute albums of Neil Diamond. Let's face it, Neil isn't exactly the first artist you'd expect to find a crappy tribute album of. The first one is actually Elvis.

I really do like Neil Diamond... Well, at least his very early stuff. After he released Sweet Caroline, he became more of an adult contemporary artist as opposed to the rockin' 60 pop guy he started off as. He had some extremely stale albums in the 1990s. If you're gonna get into Neil Diamond, stay away from that era.


The Heartlite Band - Music of Neil Diamond


The first one on the list was purchased at Dollarama. Every once in a while, you can find a pretty cool album there. This isn't one of them. There's a lot of focus on Neil's shitty output such as "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" and "Love on the Rocks". The only real good thing about this CD is the cover which has Neil's name in that gold foil stuff that doesn't show up when you scan it. Hence the crappy photograph I took.

The guy singing on Cracklin' Rosie sounds like he's having trouble hitting those low notes, and the producer put absolutely no effects on his voice. And what kind of ending is that? It sounds like the band said "Fuck this shit, it's good enough."

Listen to Cracklin' Rosie


Avenue Recordings - A Tribute to Neil Diamond


When I think of Neil Diamond, I think of guns, the US Army, cheeseburgers, and Mickey Mouse. These guys made the PERFECT album cover to represent the songs on this record. Well... maybe just the Mickey Mouse.

This is another appearance from my buddies at Avenue of America (in this case, it's just "Avenue Recordings" since this record came from England). I've reviewed a bunch of their shitty 8-tracks in the past. Up until this moment in time, I thought they were an 8-track only company. After all, any idiot with an 8-track recorder could release their garage band's piece of crap cover album. Perhaps AOA saved up enough cash from 8-track sales to press a record. Due to the credits on the label, we can point our Neil-Diamond-inspired guns at one person named Alan Caddy, who arranged, conducted, and produced this album. I'm surprised he didn't give himself writing credits, although he claims copyright on the back of the album. Copy Right? More like Copy Wrong.

While Alan was in his drunken stupor creating the album cover, he forgot to list the first song on the album. Fucking dumbass.

Anyway, I've brought you two Mickey Mouse recordings from this English record without British accents... The apparent bonus track "Shilo", and the atrocious "Solitary Man" which sounds NOTHING like what it should when it starts, and due to the incorrect lyrics, makes the singer have a threesome with at least one other man.

Listen to Shilo
Listen to Solitary Man

As a side note, the Neil Diamond CD came shrink wrapped with a Bee Gees tribute album. I haven't listened to it yet because I don't like the Bee Gees at the best of times.

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

German Nudie Records

During the summer, I seemed to have the luck of stumbling across quite a few German records. I haven't the slightest clue about German culture, but it appears that the women enjoy doing the most mundane activities while naked. Perhaps I'm living in the wrong country.

Click on the images to see the unedited versions.





Just look at how fucking happy they are! They're nothing like all those porn magazine models making that "I'm a bitch" face. I think I'll be moving to Austria in the near future.

Two of these records are brought to you by the same company that makes universal remote controls and batteries.

I picked one song off the 'naked lady with the umbrella' album, simply because it had yodelling in it.

Listen to Yodelling German Guy

On December 17th, I'll be doing a Christmas special on Amateur Hour. You should book your vacation time now so you can fly down to Winnipeg and listen to 95.9 FM at 5:00!

Wednesday, November 5, 2014

Horrible Peking Opera Record



THIS RECORD IS REALLY FUCKING ANNOYING. What a way to start off a blog entry! Just cut all the shit and get to the point. This ten inch record is like Chinese torture. Wait.... it IS chinese torture! My poor ears have torn themselves from my head and flushed themselves down the toilet.

I got this in a batch of free records, and I hate it. They've taken two annoying things (chinese singers and opera music) and have put them together into this ugly collection of noise. I don't know if this is a play, a musical or a movie, but it should be thrown in the garbage.

With titles such as "Telling the Family's Revolutionary History" and "The Poor Man's Child Shares The Household Burden From Early Age", you'll be sure to grab your puke bucket and heave. This music is PAINFUL. It's the equivalent of putting your pet goat and some rocks in to a blender, and putting it on LOW speed while someone is standing beside you smashing trashcan lids together. You can actually pick out the moment when they turn on the blender.

My turntable has crawled into a corner, and is sobbing uncontrollably.

Listen to Chinese Woman in Heat!
Listen to Goat and Rocks in Blender!