Tuesday, April 21, 2020

Fake Engelberts

And now, it's time for a Classical Gas Emissions FAQ!

Q: Everyone's trapped in their house. Why haven't you been bombarding me with entries so I stay entertained?
A: I still have a job to go to. I'm one of those "essential services" in the health care industry.

Q: OMG! How are you gonna do the Junq Tour with this plague going on?
A: I'm working on that.

Q: I really want to hear some shitty Engelbert Humperdinck covers. When are you going to satisfy my craving?
A: Right now!

Yes, we're going to cover the artist famous for songs such as "The Last Wartz" and "Les Bicyclettes de Fat Bottomed Girls". I'm by no stretch a huge Engelbert fan, but I know a few songs, so let's get on with one of the most knocked-off artists loved by horny old baby boomer women across the globe.

Tribute to Engelbert Humperdinck



So how do you know these have been sitting in my queue for fucking forever? Because I have two copies of this one. I repaired the easiest one (the one with the screw) and left the other one alone. No point in fixing both unless somebody rightfully recorded over one of them. However, it appears that someone actually repaired one of them by replacing the deteriorated pad with some yellow sponge. Why they would bother is beyond me.

Looks like Engelbert was going through his blonde woman look during the recording of this one.

The songs on this one are hit or miss. Some sound exactly like Engelbert, others not so much. However, the instrumentation on this one is pretty decent and the mix is good.

If you look closely on the cover, you'll see the following text:

Can you tell the difference from the original songs? 12 fabulous cover hits.

Is this album supposed to be a game? Did they sell this piece of shit in the game section? I highly doubt it. If anything, they were hoping that the dumbass buying this tape wouldn't see that text. Obviously, at least two dumbasses didn't see it and wasted their money.

Listen to Release Me


The Vale Orchestra Singers & Chorus Vol.2 - Tribute to Tom Jones & Engelbert Humperdinck



Boy, that title's a mouth full, isn't it?

Because neither of these artists had very many hits, it was only logical to cram them both onto one tape. I know about as many Tom Jones songs as I do Engelbert songs. Too bad Sex Bomb isn't on here, let alone What's New Pussycat.

The singer on the Engelbert songs is flat as hell. He probably wanted to make the recording session as painless as possible by sucking on a bottle of cheap gin before going in the recording booth. Whoever mixed this tried to bury fake Dinck with the bad instrumentation.

But here's the good news... You get a fake Tom Jones song as a bonus!

Listen to The Last Waltz
Listen to Delilah


Thunderbirds - Golden Hits In The Style of Engelbert Humperdinck



Yes, feel free to laugh at me. FOUR FUCKING COPIES. Why don't I just take my wallet and flush it down the toilet?

Each of them is different in some way, shape or form. The one with the winter scene has the tape twisted. One I attempted to repair had too much brittle plastic shatter. One has what appears to be damaged tape. Fortunately, I got one of them working, but there's some static on the first program. There's no winning here.

In the last entry, we listened to Anne Murray songs performed by the Thunderbird Singers. I have no clue if these Thunderbirds are related to them, but given that both of these pieces of shit came from "Deville" (aka Fantastic F, aka Music City, aka Starburst Music), I can only assume that they're the same group.

The tape sounds like it's playing too slow and the singer sounds more drunk than the last guy. And what is it with these Deville tapes being just a tad distorted? Yeah, let's just crank the record levels because this sounds so fucking good! So, feel free to turn this one up loud to add more distortion and maybe you won't hear how bad it is.

Listen to A Man Without Love


We have more 8-tracks to cover in the next entry. They're just piling up all over the place, so I figured I'd bang a few of them off. Try to keep the image of me banging 8-tracks out of your head and I'll see you in the next installment.