Harry ShearerBesprekingen

A satire about corruption, deception, corporations, and the Native American way. Good enough to finish, but not great enough to rave about.

An aging rock band goes on tour.

Overrated. There are some very funny scenes, but not enough to sustain an entire movie on their own.

Concept: D
Story: D
Characters: C
Dialog: B
Pacing: C
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: B
Acting: B
Music: C

Enjoyment: C plus

GPA: 2.1/4

Wry skepticism, intelligent analysis, and comic exuberance across many topics covered in this reprint of sixty-two Harry Shearer columns.

slight, but not stupid½

Before VH1s Behind The Music; before YouTube; before Borat and Bruno; before Heavy: The Story of Metal; but not before The Jerk or Airplane! or SNL, but before In Living Color and Dumb and Dumber, but not before Monty Python or Anaconda....what I mean to say is, In The Beginning, before Wholly Moses or Holy Moses, but not after Armageddon, either, there were the legendary British mock stars, Spinal Tap, a band of mini-Stonehenge proportions, both sonically and stuffed-sock-in-crotchily, and it was rad, and it was bitchen, and it was unquestionably clear their artistic intentions, when they opened with, Tonight We're Gonna Rock You, Tonight. Tonight We're Gonna Rock You, Tonight, brought new, profound meaning and depth of insight to the oft-redundant (and more often than not, banal) realm of heavy metal lyrics. But there's nothing banal about Spinal Tap's music, or their movie, or their music. If by Tonight We're Gonna Rock You, Tonight, Spinal Tap set out to rock you, tonight well then, hells bells if they did not indeed rock you tonight like you'd never been rocked tonight either that night or any night since!

True, Queen gave the world Fat Bottomed Girls in 1978, but Spinal Tap, ever aspiring to outclass the oftentimes raunchy and debauched competition of late 70s/early 80s heavy metal and hard rock music, in 1982 (the movie wasn't released until 1984) countered Queen's crass and pejoratively deplorable objectification of a singular asspect of the glorious female anatomy with a tribute to rotund derriers uniquely its own, Big Bottoms. Hold your Sweet Honey close and listen to (or merely read, if you can) the lyrics below. Make a romantic evening of it, admiring the subtlety and complexity of Spinal Tap's nuanced word play and puns from a Big Bottoms excerpt, as featured in the film, This Is Spinal Tap.

My baby fits me like a flesh tuxedo
I'd like to sink her with my pink torpedo

Big bottoms, big bottoms
Talk about bum cakes, my girl's got 'em
Big bottoms drive me out of my mind
How could I leave this behind?

Ahhh. They sure don't write sensitive love ballads like that anymore, do they? Certainly not in heavy metal. And if you call in the next 6.66 seconds, we'll send you Spinal Tap's classic follow up albums - Break Like The Wind and Smell The Glove for FREE!

This Is Spinal Tap is even better than a double-enema or a robust and blustery bowel movement after an unduly, days long, bout of constipation. Better than a transesophagealechocardiogram, for my money. Watch This Is Spinal Tap, and you may not need that extra-strength laxative.

The writers, Rob Reiner, Harry Shearer, Christopher Guest, and Michael McKean, tapped in oh so sublimely (if not so spinally), with satiric precision, as they pierced the bloated, bombastic heavy metal bubble of that time, and let out in whoopee-cushioned-flatulent-fashion, as they pricked, with their monumentally phallic, mockumentary flick, all that heavy metal hot air and excess. Think Screaming For Vengeance era Judas Priest - studs and black leather - without a doubt, the model of a metal band that Spinal Tap mercilessly mocked, down to the last malfunctioning Alienesque-pod-prop detail. Or think Herman Rarebell (his real name, and not a Spinal Tap invention), the drummer for the then hugely popular, Scorpions, who was quoted saying, after watching the film, This Is Spinal Tap, how offensive he thought it was. Offensive because he felt people would see the movie and then not be as likely to take their music - the Scorpions' in particular and heavy metal in general - as seriously as they once did. And he was serious!

Spinal Tap, as a band, moreover, was strangely prescient when it came to crafting en vouge album covers, having just released their own "black" album long before Metallica's classic "black" album broke all heavy metal sales records a decade later; though at the time, they were poking fun, of course, at AC/DCs uber-successful, Back In Black, completely black album cover.

Spinal Tap was louder than most heavy metal bands as well, because their guitar amps went to...eleven! instead of ten. Imagine if that type of guitar amplification technology and sound innovation had existed for Pete Townshend in his Who's Next to Quadrophenia prime? -- how many more than 120 Guinness-Book-of-World-Records-decibels would have been recorded at that May 31st, 1976 WHO concert in Charlton, South London? Undoubtedly, at least eleven more decibels would have been recorded.

Famous rock critic, Reginald Yardcoch, in his seminal heavy metal treatise, first published in the fanzine, Play Metal, Boys!, entitled, "How Spinal Tap Reshaped Metal The Way Silicone Reshaped Breasts," said a Spinal Tap gig "made him gag for all the right reasons."

May watching This Is Spinal Tap make you gag (assuming you get it, the movie, I mean) in a good way too!

Not Enough Indians should be funnier than it is. Harry Shearer is a brilliant comedian with a keen intellect--have you heard Le Show, his NPR radio program? And his premise is funny enough--dying town in upstate New York tries everything to stay solvent, Las Vegas wise guy in town to scope out Indian gaming up close makes an offer the town fathers can't refuse, voila! everyone in town's discovered his Indian heritage and the casino's a smash. And yet...

Perhaps the gaming industry is so over the top that it's beyond parody--it satirizes itself. Harry Shearer provides some laugh out loud moments, but the entirety of the book just didn't gel for this reader.½

When I found out that Harry Shearer - The Simpsons, Spinal Tap - was writing a book, I made sure to get it. And what is funnier than a town pretending to be a bunch of Native Americans so they can open a casino and start making some money to improve their town. Funny with some smart social commentary.

Harry Shearer is a really funny guy, but not every piece in this collection reflects that fact. (Was that a nice way of saying that? How about, "he's no James Lileks"?)

82 minutos

Product Details

* Audio CD (August 29, 2000)
* Number of Discs: 1
* Format: Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered, Soundtrack
* Label: Polydor / Pgd
* Catalog Number: 549075
* ASIN: B00004WGVQ
* Also Available in: Audio CD
* Average Customer Review: based on 60 reviews. (Write a review.)
* Amazon.com Sales Rank: #29,858 in Music (See Top Sellers in Music)
Yesterday: #47,792 in Music

Listen to Samples
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1. Hell Hole Listen Listen
2. Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight Listen Listen
3. Heavy Duty Listen Listen
4. Rock and Roll Creation Listen Listen
5. America Listen Listen
6. Cups and Cakes Listen Listen
7. Big Bottom Listen Listen
8. Sex Farm Listen Listen
9. Stonehenge Listen Listen
10. Listen To Me (The Flower People) Listen Listen
11. Christmas With The Devil (Bonus Track) Listen Listen
12. Christmas With The Devil (Scratch Mix) (Bonus Track) Listen Listen
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
One of the greatest ironies surrounding This Is Spinal Tap is that it's actually better than many of the recordings it parodies. Songs like "Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight," "Hell Hole," "Heavy Duty," and even "Stonehenge" are fun, 1980s-style rockers that any closet hair-band fan will enjoy, and "Sex Farm" and "Big Bottom" are simply hilarious by any standard. There's also the hippie-drippy "Listen to Me (the Flower People)" (even funnier if you've seen Rob Reiner's film of the same title), although Michael McKean and Christopher Guest singing "Cry, Cry, Cry All the Way Home" is sadly absent. The CD does lose some of its entertainment value if you haven't seen the film, but its mix of comedy and unabashed pop metal makes it the perfect party album. --Genevieve Williams
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41 of 43 people found the following review helpful:
England's Loudest Band, October 17, 2000
Reviewer: Jon Harlson (West Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
Finally, here is a collection of sone of the greatest hits of one of Englands Loudest Bands, Spinal Tap. This is overall a great collection. It has 2 pre-tap songs, when David and Nigel were in the Thamesmen, and Spinal Tap's first, and only, international number one hit, Listen to (the flower people). It also has some of the fan favorites like "Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You" from the classic Intrevenous De Milo album, and "Rock N Roll Creation" from my personal favorite tap album A Rock and Roll Creation (known to others as The Gospel According to Spinal Tap). Although many may disagree with me, they may be right, because I am a sucker for concept albums. Some of the other fan favoites are on here, like "Big Bottom" from their phenominal Brainhammer album, and "Sex Farm" from their rather disappointing Shark Sandwich album. ALthough the music is good, it seems that Tap was trying to recreated the magic they had during the Intrevenous De Milo period, and they didn't succeed. Despite some great songs on this album, there are some disappointments. There are no songs from their famous Blood to Let album. It may be because a young taphead was found dead while listening to this albums, and initial accusations were that they album made him commit suicide. However, authorities did and autopsy and found out the cause of death was boredom. It would also be nice to see the 19 minute live version of "Short N Easy" from their Silent but Deadly live album. There are also some old classics missing like "We Are All Flower People" "To Fly" "I Am Flight" "Get Me Away From the Ground" "The Incredible Flight of Icarus P. Anybody" and "All the Way Home". As well as the recent composition by Nigel entitled "Lick My Lovepump". Although this collection is missing some great songs which will never see the light of day since Megaphone has refused to release any of their albums due to "Lack of Talent", there are some great gems here, and this is a great introduction to Spinal Tap to any new Taphead.

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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
They're gonna rock you tonight, September 12, 2003
Reviewer: E. A Solinas "ea_solinas" (MD USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 10 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
They transcended their hippie-ish song origins to become the loudest, strangest metal band in Britain: Spinal Tap, the slightly insane band of Rob Reiner's mockumentary/rockumentary "This is Spinal Tap." And not mentioning their songs is like neglecting to say that the beach has water. Included are the goopy hippie anthem "(Listen To the) Flower People," the hilarious buttock anthem "Big Bottom" (so much for "Bootylicious"), the abortive semi-mystical "Stonehenge," the delicious "Gimme Some Money," and a bunch of others from the movie.

Technically, you don't have to have seen "This is Spinal Tap" to be amused by the songs, but knowing their context makes them about five times funnier. (Try to listen to "Stonehenge" without seeing that tiny replica being lowered to the stage, or hear "Rock 'N' Roll Creation" without seeing Derek trapped in his pod) If I didn't know better, I would actually think that Spinal Tap was a real band. (For your information, that is not a black cover -- it's a close-up of the black glove. Okay?)

This album brims over with the good-natured "retarded sexuality and bad poetry" that people love. The lyrics range from almost normal to insanely bad. They rhyme "Monday" with "Bun-day" (from "Big Bottom"), to give one example. The good songs are pretty good, and the bad songs are so terrible they're brilliant. They includes such Shakespearean gems as "Getting out my pitch fork/And poking your hay" ("Sex Farm"), "Where the dew drops cry and the cats meow" ("Stonehenge"), and "You know what I want/You know what I need/Or maybe you don't" ("Gimme Some Money"). What's really amazing: They rate above the bands they parody, both in singing and musical quality.

Highly recommended, and not just for fans of the modern classic mockumentary. So crank your amps up to eleven and listen to Britain's loudest band. And ignore those dwarfs dancing around the tiny Stonehenge, okay?½