Flight of the Conchords 'I Told You I Was Freaky' album

There is so much that could be said regarding Flight of the Conchords. How they hail from New Zealand, the island nation with multiple postal services. Or that, after winning a Best Comedy Album Grammy for The Distant Future in 2007, they were nominated for a second Best Comedy Album Grammy in 2008, but were actually relieved not to win again—-because meaningless trophies really do seem important when you only have one, and have to fight over who gets to keep it. And that during the recently-completed second season of their popular HBO television series, fans could download new songs immediately after they debuted on-air. Or that this same popular HBO television series (conveniently also called Flight of the Conchords) was recently nominated for what-sure-seems-like-a-record-breaking 6 Emmys.

But all that is mere background, fact-based information that, while, granted, is largely true, impressive, and odd, doesn’t really allow us to serve up the steaming plate of rich, delicious and hopefully irresistibly persuasive description for which we (or our hired writers) are somewhat known in certain circles. And so: While Flight of the Conchords hammered out their reputation from behind the relative safety of acoustic guitars, blithely billed as a “folk comedy” act, nowadays their musical style runs rampant, unchecked. Judging from the range displayed here on I Told You I Was Freaky, Flight of the Conchords have yet to unearth a genre which can withstand their artistry. Unflinching in their lyrical stance, sophisticated with their arrangements, crafting melodies which always lodge firmly in the frontal lobe: Flight of the Conchords have created 13 best-selling ringtones, humbly masquerading as songs. Their rhymes are fearless, their thesauruses dog-eared. Only cool, confident specimens of manhood such as these could drop three-dollar vocabulary busters like “dungarees” and “pantaloons” while still mesmerizing the ladies with their undulating “Sugalumps.” Vivid imagery? Check: The ardent “Angels” should spur listeners to think twice the next time they consider catching a snowflake on their tongues. Better still, the amorous odyssey of the album’s zenith, “We’re Both in Love with a Sexy Lady,” unfolds before the listener’s very ears in real time; Flight of the Conchords are making history, and You! Are! There!

I Told You I Was Freaky is, among a great many other things, a genre-tripping tour de force and includes three songs from the second series of the show which are otherwise as yet unreleased (“Rambling Through the Avenues of Time,” “Too Many Dicks (On the Dance Floor)” and “You Don’t Have to Be a Prostitute”).

Flight of the Conchords biography
How do you get someone to fall in love with you? Well, looking good helps, certainly. It’s almost impossible to overstate the importance of the “physically attractive” factor within the love equation. But, what of the nugatory remainder? That miscellaneous two to two-and-a-third percent of the whole, which remains invisible to our Earth mirrors but accounts for one man’s ease of contentment and dooms another to a life sentence of solitude.

I mean to say, what’s up with that?

Take as our case study, the world famous New Zealand comedy and music duo, Flight of the Conchords. Undeniably, they’ve got the goods in the face department. And yet, with our nation’s recent emphases on proper diet, exercise, steroid abuse, and cosmetic surgery, that beauty stuff’s as common as commas. No, the two antipodeans possess some unutterable and ultimately powerful else. An eldritch other, which has brought every woman of my acquaintance to discuss these two rogues in terms and tones more suited to the great classics of romantic literature. (Specifically, I’m thinking of certain titles I keep on an upper shelf, behind some luggage, in a plain cardboard box cleverly labeled “tax info.”)

If near-universal wanton desire is any barometer of success, then truly, this is the era of Flight of the Conchords.

“Wherefore now? Why not sometime later? Next week, for example.” It must be now, weary traveler, because as those selfsame troubadours have phrased it, It’s Business Time.

We begin with the two men in their younger years, Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement, students in Wellington, New Zealand and the year of Flight of the Conchords genesis, 1998 A.D. From there, things move quickly: regional shows, wider exposure, international comedy festivals, awards, respect, admiration, an eponymous HBO television series, and the captured hearts of a nation at large. (That was quick.)

Therefore, like any Zeitgeist worth its Gewicht, only one additional step rings logically sound: The Record Deal.

In the mid-summer of 2007, Sub Pop Records released a six track Grammy Award-nominated (it’s true!) CDEP, The Distant Future. Simply, it destroyed.

Thus, it hath come to pass that a full-length album, helpfully titled Flight of the Conchords, has been recorded and very likely–in some form or another–accompanies this piece of paper or digital detritus.

The record: produced by Mickey Petralia (Beck Midnight Vultures, Ladytron Light & Magic) in Los Angeles, New York and Wellington. It features fully fleshed-out and professionally recorded versions of Flight of the Conchords concert and television favorites, rendering pointless all the inexpert fan-made audio transfers (the modern day equivalent of holding a microphone up to the television speaker and shouting at your mom to be quiet), which have bloated hard drives the world over. The songs are heard here in expanded but reverent arrangements. Bret and Jemaine’s trademark acoustic guitars lead the blitz, backed by a diverse array of instrumentation and production technique.

Agreed, the album sounds legitimate and musically, it’s incredible, but, as Shakespeare said, “Does it funny?” Happily, yes. If amazing, delightful and hilarious is your idea of funny, then prepare for undisappointment! These 15 songs pay homage to Pet Shop Boys, censorship, Marvin Gaye, sexism, Shabba Ranks, and backhanded compliments. To be blunt, if you can’t find a rire ou sourire in the FSL study guide of opening track, “Foux du Fafa,” then, please notice, vous êtes malade.

You, if you do exist, have most likely already transferred the head with the heels for our two lads and need no further encouragement from my quarter to celebrate the release of their first full-length studio album. It must be nice to have someone to love, even if that love will never be returned. It must feel something like being alive. I’ll never know. These cold, metal claws were programmed to perform only two functions: writing record company bios and killing humans. TTFN.

—M.W. Olsen

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Flight of the Conchords - I Told You I Was Freaky