| Spy Games |
THIS IS SPINAL TAP
Ten classics from the kings of Brit-metal idiocy…
(LISTEN TO THE) FLOWER PEOPLE Before metal, Tap were trippy peaceniks. Featuring guitarist Nigel Tufnel’s electric sitar, this dainty ditty bottles half-baked hippy optimism beautifully.
‘It’s about a movement,’ says singer David St.
Hubbins. ‘Without a good movement, it’s hard to get your day started.’
JAZZ ODYSSEY Convinced that jazz musicians needed showing how it’s done, pipe-blowing bassist Derek Smalls forged Tap’s ‘new direction’ from his bass runs. ‘It’s an escapade up and down the neck,’ he says. Fans simply sought the nearest escape route.
GIMME SOME MONEY Pitched between The Beatles and The Who, Tap’s British Invasion throwback is scarily accurate. Homage, parody – such a fine line. Don’t mistake the lyrics for metaphor: Tap just wanted money, ‘pound notes, loose change, bad checks, anything’.
HELL HOLE Tufnel has the blues in a reflection on his modest upbringing, a moral tale in which success is overrated. As Nige mopes over fame’s backstage buffets, he misses his impoverished past. ‘I’m flashing back into my pan,’ goes the killer pay-off.
HEAVY DUTY With an intro demanding air-drumming participation, Tap’s AC/DC-ish stomper equates rock with pain. ‘Great rock’n’roll should hurt,’ Hubbins opines, wisely. Duly, Tufnel brings the torment with his take on Boccherini’s Minuet, goosing rock-classical pretension gloriously.
SEX FARM A funny thing happened to Tufnel driving through the Midlands. ‘We saw a sex farm,’ he says. ‘It’s something that exists.’ It does in song, as Hubbins milks every known – and some unknown - farmyard/ intercourse metaphor in the lyrics. Cover Shaun the Sheep’s ears.
BIG BOTTOM Queen or Kiss parody? Either way, Tap’s butt-rock tribute is all about that bass. ‘People love hearing low sounds,’ says Tufnel. As proof, Tap maxed the bottom end at Live Earth 2007 with an army of bassists. Don’t leave this behind.
ROCK AND ROLL CREATION With a riff culled from Black Sabbath, Tap’s creationmyth anthem is, sayeth Hubbins, ‘an attempt to touch, or at least rub, the face of God’. The magisterially pretentious riff and prog mid-section nail metal’s amateur dramatics to the mast.
STONEHENGE From dawn to Donington, metal fans have long contemplated the druidic magic of ‘Stone’enge’. Size issues about the stage model aside, Tap’s prog epic is a precision-tooled tribute to rock’s immersion in Britfolk mystery, torn from the Zep/Sabs songbook.
TONIGHT I’M GONNA ROCK YOU TONIGHT Tap’s show opener is the band at its most direct and, indeed, informative. ‘It’s saying intent,’ says Hubbins. ‘This,’ adds Tufnel, ‘is what’s going to happen.’ Their after-rock song remains unwritten but who knows? A 40th-anniversary sequel could bump this Tap 10 up to 11.
FRESH SPINS
Mild at heart and weird on top…
WISH ★★★★★
Should Disney have wished a little harder? While Encanto’s tunes brimmed with zip, the uniformly pleasant songs here need more We Don’t Talk About Bruno-esque pep and punch. This Wish’s pop charms lack Lin-Manuel Miranda’s light-up-the-sky dazzle; I’m a Star and villain song This is the Thanks I Get?! are vaporous. Chris Pine and Ariana DeBose duet sweetly on At All Costs, but otherwise only the percussive Knowing What IKnow Now drums up the verve and gusto that Wish so clearly yearns for.
POOR THINGS ★★★★★
British experimentalist Jerskin Fendrix approaches his intoxicatingly lush debut score like someone discovering film music anew. Tinkly and innocent, canted and weird, Fendrix’s skewed punk symphonies mismatch instruments – drunken squeezebox, piercing strings, breathy pipe organs – instinctively, showing delicious disregard for convention. Sometimes the score resembles a monster movie gone rogue, sometimes Mica Levi (Under the Skin) at play. Sometimes it’s a tad overskittish, too, but Fendrix binds his strands beautifully for the warped, wonderful end-credits crescendo.