THE THIRD REICH 'N' ROLL

What exactly was the point of this album? Did The Residents truly think that popular music, including a breadth of choices beyond the bubblegum, was acting as if a mind control conspiracy wrought by the Dick Clark Reich? Were they instead, as a few have ventured to guess, setting up this crazed concept album as a veiled, satirical attack on the mindset of the soon-to-be Tipper Brigade? Both? Or neither, and this was just a group of wild Louisiana musical outcasts throwing whatever at the wall for the heck of it, not caring if a lick of it stuck? Enough questions, as this is simply a meisterwerk of avant-garde, deconstructionist music with gallons of fun instead of kilolitres of pretention. Here everyone's favourite singing crawfishes ran riot over America's Top 40 - we're not talking Attila or Genghis here, we're talking Timur Lang - and so the only result is a laugh riot for us listeners. They packed the songs in here like they were sardines, and each tastes like Yog-Sothoth's ambrosia. The band, Snakefinger, and their twisted backing band that foreshadowed the Elephant 6 Orchestra all did exactly what they had to do to pull this wonderful mess off. Knocks your socks off. My pick for best moment is that ending, Snakefinger pining away on his guitar to "Hey Jude" while the eyeballs themselves join in with half-hearted "woo- hoo"s a la "Sympathy For The Devil"; that, ladies and gentlemen, is the sound of the '60's dying. A must listen for anyone familiar with '60's and '70's Top 40, with plunderphonics, with any lick of love of experimentation in their mind, heart, and soul. *toilet flushes*