Flight of the Concords

Sub Pop
By MIKAEL WOOD  |  April 29, 2008
2.0 2.0 Stars
Flight_Conchords_inside
Given my choice of late-night HBO comedy series about foul-mouthed acoustic duos with inflated senses of self-importance, I’ll take Tenacious D over Flight of the Conchords every time. There’s no doubting that Bret and Jermaine — the two New Zealanders attempting to find fame in New York City — are funny fellows; “The Most Beautiful Girl (In the Room),” in which they toy with R&B slow-jam conventions, is worth its weight in YouTube clips. But as a musical concern, the Conchords can’t hold a candle to the D, a shortcoming that’s much more apparent on this homonymous CD than it is on TV. Although producer (and Beck pal) Mickey Petralia fleshes out Bret and Jermaine’s stripped-down ditties with loads of cute electropop details, few of these tunes stick in your head like Tenacious D’s insanely catchy arena-folk jams. Some of that is attributable to the Conchords’ deadpan sensibility. Perhaps they think that out-and-out catchiness would spoil the joke, but surely there’s a more memorable way of making the point.
Related: Flight of the Conchords | I Told You I Was Freaky, Funny business, Class of the Titans, More more >
  Topics: CD Reviews , Entertainment, Tenacious D, Flight of the Conchords,  More more >
| More


Most Popular
ARTICLES BY MIKAEL WOOD
Share this entry with Delicious
  •   THE CHEMICAL BROTHERS | FURTHER  |  July 07, 2010
    Astralwerks (2010)
  •   DEVO | SOMETHING FOR EVERYBODY  |  July 01, 2010
    Given the theory of de-evolution these Ohio brainiacs began expounding more than 30 years ago, it makes a sad kind of sense that Devo's first album since 1990's Smooth Noodle Maps offers such a charmless, base-level version of the band's synth-addled new wave.
  •   TAIO CRUZ | ROKSTARR  |  June 24, 2010
    When Taio Cruz sings, "I can't live without you," in "Take Me Back," pop-song conventions tell us he's referring to a lover.
  •   THE FUTUREHEADS | THE CHAOS  |  June 16, 2010
    "I wish that I could stop the noise," sings Barry Hyde not long into The Chaos . It sure doesn't seem that way.
  •   BETTYE LAVETTE | INTERPRETATIONS: THE BRITISH ROCK SONGBOOK  |  June 01, 2010
    Bettye LaVette’s previous two albums had titles that required a little digging to unpack.

 See all articles by: MIKAEL WOOD