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Flight of the Conchords - I Told You I Was Freaky
Send "Flight of the Conchords " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
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Protest if you must, but the second season of "Flight of the Conchords" somehow ended up being better than the first. Fair may it be to argue that Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie's Kiwi hipster-doofus schtick had outworn its welcome (the dubious return of Bret's "Rap Dancin'" crew-neck sweatshirt might be all the proof needed there), the faux-folk duo found themselves backed by better writing, more screen time for all those increasingly brilliant auxiliary characters, and, in some respects, better songs. If for nothing else, it's well worth the price of the DVD for the pleasure of having the timeless image of a baffled Jemaine confronted by an identically dressed Art Garfunkel permanently seared onto your frontal lobe. But about those songs. Like their self-titled debut, I Told You I Was Freaky collects the musical focal point(s) from each episode, presented untouched and sold as an album. Unlike the debut, which effortlessly presented itself as a straight-up comedy record that succeeded independently of the accompanying television program, Freaky sort of only works as a soundtrack, slave to the mutual exclusivity of its visual counterpoint. So even the fact that most of the songs here are funnier, more varied, and in most cases more tuneful and catchy than their predecessors, most of the payoff is tied to whether or not you're able to reenact in your head the very same imprudent predicament featured on the screen. For example, there's the falsetto-laden "We're Both in Love With a Sexy Lady", a spot-on send-up of R. Kelly and Usher's "Same Girl". While the idea may seem pitch-perfect, the song has an awful lot to do with the particulars of the episode where both Jemaine and Bret fall hard for a girl with an epileptic dog. If you're already on board, the song's still great fun-- if not, it's simply a plot-tie set to music. Though I seriously doubt there will be more than a couple of people out there picking up this record without having seen "Flight of the Conchords", it's difficult to fully enjoy something that so critically hinges on external specifics. So even in rare cases where songs fall flat, like the Police-baiting "You Don't Have to Be a Prostitute" or "Angels", you don't even have the memory of Jemaine hooking in too-short-shorts to pad them with. It's almost as if those geniuses at HBO are trying to boost DVD sales or something......full text |
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| Strangeglue |
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After an absolutely flawless first series, the 'fourth most popular guitar-based digi-bongo-a capella-rap-funk-comedy folk duo' known to most as Flight Of The Conchords (or simply FOTC) officially announced that they had run out of ideas. The duo toured relentlessly before the first series of their HBO-released, highly-acclaimed self-titled TV programme began to air and so of course, it was easy to incorporate all of their previously created, tightly knit comedy songs into the episodes plot-lines. However, as HBO pushed for another season and their name spread to almost every corner of the planet, Jermaine Clement and Brett Mckenzie opened up about the struggle to write new songs quicker than they had ever done before. Once Season two was completed and aired, the struggle was almost immediately noticeable in both plot and songs. It was still funnier than 90% of any other satirical shows out there but it just didn't live up to expectations. And so here we have studio album number two, released on the Sub Pop label just one year after their début self-titled effort and filled with thirteen full tracks, all taken from the second season of the television series and all disappointing in their own way. Now, on with the actual album review. First and foremost, it's important to note that we, at Strange Glue, are huge fans of the twosome. Many a late night drinking session has been fuelled by rambling attempts to perform Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros. Their subtle, classically New Zealand humour is some of the best on stage and TV and both members of the band are wildly talented in their own unique way. The first season of the show was like nothing you'd seen before (even if the whole 'two guys in a house' concept has been bludgeoned to death of late) and presented the audience with some of the driest, most sarcastic and down-played comedy genius TV could create. The problem then, lays mostly within season two's disappointing struggle and the songs that came from that. The episodes were still brilliant no doubt, but there was something lacking in the songs, something that their previous material didn't show once. ...full text |
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| Prefixmag |
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I Told You I Was Freaky might be the last Flight of the Conchords-related product we ever get from ol' Bret and Jemaine, as they seem content to go out on top instead of over-working themselves coming up with new ways to parody synth-pop and hip-hop. Which is totally okay, since what they're going out on is top-notch stuff; the songs from I Told You pull exclusively from the second season of the show of the same name, and among their number are some of the series best ("Tears of a Rapper," "Carol Brown," "Too Many Dicks (On the Dancefloor)," and the title track). It'd be great if Flight of the Conchords come back for another season, but for now, I Told You I Was Freaky will have to do. ~ Andrew Winistorfer Review By Andrew Winistorfer Prefix Rating 7.5 Your RatingLogin to rate this post Somewhere between sold-out tours, a quick ascendance to fame following 10 episodes of their show, and Filter cover stories, Flight of the Conchords allegedly ran out of ideas. For the first time in many years (they were grinding out in the trenches for nearly a decade before they broke big), the duo of Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement actually had to sit down and write new songs, which they didn’t have to do before season one. The ensuing scramble to write funny songs on HBO’s tight schedule for season two has reportedly broken the band, leading them to announce that they’ll be taking at least a year hiatus, and might not do another Flight of the Conchords program again. The prevailing opinion is that the second season of Flight of the Conchords was something of a slump, and the pressure of getting the songs done clearly affected the quality. But listening to I Told You I Was Freaky, the group’s sophomore album, which culls 13 songs from the second season, I’m not convinced that the second season, while musically not that adventurous (R&B and hip-hop tracks take up a lot of the disc) doesn’t measure up (and occasionally surpass) the heights of season one and the group’s self-titled debut. ...full text |
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