Search - Christopher Guest, Harry Shearer, Michael McKean :: Spinal Tap

Awesome Spinal Tap album.

Deimos | Alberta | 07/17/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is where it all starts, everyone needs to be Tapped. Spinal Tap is one of the greatest bands, amazing songs, fun rock lyrics and just total metal, loud, fun music."

Gimme Some Money ring a bell.

Bruce F. Bedell | 08/01/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

""THIS IS SPINAL TAP" aka THE BLACK ALBUM Is the soundtrack from the rockumentary of the same name and a must have if you've seen it. Or if you have the vinyl it's time to update, plus you'll get two bonus tracks. Oh and just a point of interest, if you've seen a certain card ad, GIMME SOME MONEY should ring a bell."

The Answer Is None More Black...

Mr. Sinister | El Cajon, CA USA | 10/08/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The fact that these blokes are up on stage, and they're wearing tight trousers, and they have aramadillos in their trousers. Well... England's Loudest Band. Spinal Tap. Here are a couble of guys from Squatney, guitarist/vocalist David St. Hubbins and lead guitarist Nigel Tuffnel, who got together and when they were lovely lads and wrote a skiffle song called "All The Way Home" and that started the ball rolling, and from their modest beginning as the Thamesmen on through the psychadelic sixties decadence into the 70's thunder rock, Spinal Tap was born. 1982, Tap has hit the states to promote their new album, Smell The Glove, and Marti DiBergi was there to document (or rockument) their exploits. From this infamous rockumentary, This Is Spinal Tap is the soundtrack. In the absence of malice, with a slew of slain drummers choking on somebody else's vomit and dying in bizzare gardening accidents and spontaneous combustable incidents, the Tap make their way across America to tour with puppet shows and take on U.S. Air Force bases. The excellence is found in the songs:



Hell Hole - Nigel penned this about his living conditions in Squatney when he was a child where his family shared a single, tiny room with no loo (he used to go to David's house to use the bathroom as did the rest of the neighborhood). But once he reached the top, he longed for those days in his Hell Hole. Great, rocking song. You know where you stand in a Hell Hole!



Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight - Originally titled Tonight, then changed to Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You, then changed finally to Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight to dispense with any plagarism issues. A straight ahead rocker based on the philosophy that you will be rocked as long as you paid to get into the show. Glorious power chords and a wailing solos. Tap unleashed.



Heavy Duty - An anthemic, driven, power ballad rock song. Why waste good music on a brain? Exactly. Great. Aimed at the fans in the audience, which were predominatly young boys. This song affected the femur of the females in the audience at some point. You're playing those solos with no guitar in your hands...



Rock And Roll Creation - A nod towards the spititualist theory that tries to touch the face or God (or at least tries to rub it) which states that the first thing He did was to create rock and roll music. You need to feel good about that. Spiritualistic in its soaring keyboards and heavenly vocals. On which day did God create Spinal Tap, which begs the follow-up question, couldn't he have rested on that day, too?



America - This is Nigel's tribute to all things American and the Americanistic intensity of being American, although he wasn't American in any way except being in America at the time he thought up some of the American things for the song. We came like babies from our home across the sea to see America... Very Americana. Awesomely American. Exceptional Brady Bunch & Smokey Bear America-based rock!



Cup And Cakes - A pre-Tap tune from the Thamesmen era, this may have been one of the lost B-sides to Gimme Some Money. Ronnie Pudding and that tall blond geek with classes on drums... he died in a bizarre gardening accident which the authorities said was best left unsolved. Stumpy Peppys? Great early 60s tune filled with goodness and laughter and treacle. Milk and sugar, bread and jam, yes please sir and thank you ma'am.



Big Bottom - The looser the waistband, the deeper the quicksand... Probably the greatest 2nd line of an opening line of any heavy rock song ever. You can never have too many people in one place playing bass because people and animals like orangutans and whales like to hear low sounds. This is an homage to the wonderful ladies in the front of the audience with their own back rows going on and the bass helps accentuate that jiggling perfection. Hands down and bottoms up, one of the greatest Tap songs ever recorded. My love gun's loaded and she's in my sights, big game is wating there inside her tights...



Sex Farm - The blokes were driving through the countryside and came upon (not literally, of course) a working sex farm, family owned, family run, where they managed to take some of the happiness with them and here it is in song form. Very funkadelic without actually even knowing what that word means, Sex Farm is intensity and farming and sex all combined to make the audience understand that sex farming is not only a way of life for some people, but an opportunity to rock as well. Working on a sex farm, trying to raise some hard love...



Stonehenge - Epic Tap. This is like their most sprawling and famous theatrical production when done correctly and without being endagered by trampling dwarves. A swirling, cascading epic of musical perfection, the Druidic feel and dulcimer stomp of Stonehenge is unequalled by any Tap song. Stonehenge, where the demons dwell, where the banshees live, and they do live well...



Gimme Some Money - Thamesmen. Early era Tap. This is when they were actually saying to the people in the audience, hey, give us some money, unfortunately they were being pelted by copper coins and such that they had to change it around to, hey, give us paper money, but it never really caught on so they never really changed the lyrics of the song. Great 60s monetary musicality.



(Listen To The) Flower People - The very first Spinal Tap song. They had just released this hugely popular single and they were touring the world because of it when tragedy struck. Right around the time that they were playing the Blues/Jazz Festival (or was it the Jazz/Blues Festival?) in The Isle of Lucy, Tap lost their drummer Eric "Stumpy Joe" Childs when a bright green flash of light incinerated him on stage, leaving nothing more than a globule (a stain, really) on his drum seat. Since dozens of people spontaneously combust each and every year and it's not widely reported, they endeavored on, sealing their place in history. (Listen To The) Flower People had the world's ear because of its beauty and Nigel's anthemic sitar playing.



The remastered version of the CD contains two versions of Christmas With The Devil which were originally released on a picture disc in 1984 by Enigma Records and recorded in May of 1984 on Saturday Night Live. The first version has the Christmas greeting from the Tap on it, the second has various scratches and squibs from the vinyl days. Overall, This Is Spinal Tap is a great retrospective of a rock band without clear direction or purpose, swimming through a sea of retarded sexuality, with lots of glandular presence. And although they might not say love thy brother, or literally mean it, the message might or might not be there, embedded in their brand of flamboyant rock and roll. Truly one of the masters of heavy rock, Spinal Tap will be forever remembered as a band that tried really, really, really , really hard to be, if not entertaining, at least rich. In substance or just monetarily, you decide.



Dig it!"