Our favorite Kiwis are finally back with their bold sophomore effort, I Told You I Was Freaky. As the title suggests, Brett and Jemaine put aside their acoustic guitars and ventured away from the world of folk that had distinctly colored their eponymous debut album. In this new album, Flight of the Conchords emerges from the musical closet in an eclectic flurry of styles and attitudes, but remains its same likeable, awkward self.
Flight of the Conchords was formed in 1998 by two flatmates—Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement—who were both studying theater and film at Victoria University of Wellington. The two built up a cult following in their native New Zealand and by 2004, were well known on the island, but not the rest of the world.
The first taste of success in the wider world came with the release of their debut EP, The Distant Future, which would go on to win a Grammy for Comedy Album of the Year. The quirky comedy group broke through on the HBO program One Night Stand in 2005, with a performance that was so impressive that HBO offered them a show of their own.
The plot of the self-titled show, which premiered in 2007, revolves around Bret and Jemaine’s quest for success in New York City with the help of their inept manager, Murray. The pair’s first full-length album features songs from the first season of the television show. Its quirky, observational humor was a big hit, as the critically acclaimed album reached number three on the US music charts.
Following such a well-developed first album was a tall order for the dynamic duo. They take their humor and music in a different direction on I Told You I Was Freaky. At first listen, the departure from the acoustic folk genre seems to have led to a dip in the overall quality of the songs. However, ‘different’ doesn’t always mean ‘worse,’ especially with a band as creative as the Conchords.
The majority of the songs from the first album had been in the band’s repertoire for years, which means they had the benefit of years of lyrical tweaking and musical fine-tuning.
Going into the second season of their show on HBO, the Conchords faced the task of writing an entire album’s worth of material in a relatively short period of time, while concurrently incorporating one or two of these songs into a scene in each episode. Every song becomes part of the storyline. Viewed in this light, I Told You I Was Freaky is an impressive musical achievement, with no room for filler or repetition. In fact, the Conchords stay fresh and put their own spin on well-known musical ideas without looking like a couple of posers.
It’s obvious where the ideas for some songs originated, like “You Don’t Have To Be a Prostitute”—Bret’s advice to Jemaine on the subject of male prostitution, inspired by The Police’s “Roxanne”—or “Sugalumps,” an ode to the eroticism of a certain two-pieced part of the male anatomy that could be a retort to “My Humps.” Others are more subtle and vague imitations of popular music styles.
Bret’s definition of gangster is refusing to settle for wearing a women’s wetsuit in the decidedly un-gangster “Hurt Feelings,” and Jemaine expresses his discontent with the unbalanced ‘dancefloor bro-ho ratio’ in the electro-pop “Too Many Dicks (On the Dance Floor).” A few songs even ring of the classic ‘Conchordian’ sound. “Carol Brown” and “Rambling Through The Avenues of Time” return to the flow-of-consciousness humor that characterizes their live shows.
Although the instrumentals give plenty of cheap thrills, the witty lyrics make this album comedy gold. I Told You I Was Freaky is a must-listen, and set The Flight of the Conchords apart as “New Zealand’s fourth most popular guitar-based digi-bongo acapella-rap-funk-comedy folk duo.”
3.5 out of 5