So why is Flight of the Conchords on this best 1,000 albums ever thing?
Music that’s genuinely good, catchy, and funny all at once will always hold a place in my heart forevermore.
Flight of the Conchords is master of this space, and the self-titled Flight of the Conchords album is mostly an acoustic guitar-centric affair. That format allows New Zealanders Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement to show off how inventive and endlessly clever and dry humored they are.
A perfect example is not one but two outstanding tracks that lean on acoustic guitar to allow the boys to go full tilt into hip-hop explorations.
“Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros” poses the fellas as a hip-hop duo with large land mammal-based handles. The hilarity kicks off immediately as the “Hiphopopotamus” (Jemaine) busts this out:
They call me the Hiphopopotamus
My lyrics are bottomless
Followed by… nothing. That’s all he’s got at the moment.
Another standout moment comes when the boys shout out Why? Why? Why? in unison and then quickly follow up with, “Be more constructive with your feedback, please.”
“Mutha’uckas” goes more into hardcore rap mode, dealing with tough problems on the streets such as getting hit with a $25 transaction fee at the bank, and tensions with the produce vendor at the supermarket over various fruits.
“Robots” is arguably the best-known Flight of the Conchords song, with good reason: it’s a wildly funny track that has the boys acting as robots who exist in the post-apocalyptic hellscape – or pretty awesome paradise, depending on one’s perspective – that comes when, as we learn, the humans are dead.
Bonus: I always want the “binary solo” and “robo-boogie” section at the end to go on and on, I just love it to pieces.
Come on sucker, lick my battery.
“Foux Du Fafa” is a delightful satire of a French pop song, while “Bowie” is a weirdo mini-epic that takes us on something of an homage to David Bowie’s career.
My wife’s and my sense of humor dovetail perfectly in our great love for “Business Time,” a comedic treatise on maintaining the romance, shall we say, amid the pressures and schedule of work and everyday life.
It’s important to add that Clement and McKenzie are also experts at deploying R&B as part of their musical and comedy arsenal. See: “The Most Beautiful Girl (In The Room).”
The somewhat insulting compliments sprinkled throughout this one never fail to crack me up.
You’re so beautiful
Well, you could be a waitress (ah)
Well, you could be an air hostess in the 60s
You’re so beautiful
Well, you could be a part-time model
Some stats & info about Flight of the Conchords
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Rock Music, Comedy Rock
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – not ranked!
- All Music’s rating – 4 out of 5 stars
- When was Flight of the Conchords released? 2008
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #158 out of 1,000
Flight of the Conchords on Spotify
A lyrical snippet from Flight of the Conchords that’s evocative of the album in some way, maybe
Business hours are over, baby.
What does the “best 1,000 albums ever” mean and why are you doing this?
Yeah, I know it’s audacious, a little crazy (okay, maybe a lot cray cray), bordering on criminal nerdery.
But here’s what it’s NOT: a definitive list of the Greatest Albums of All-Time. This is 100% my own personal super biased, incredibly subjective review of what my top 1,000 albums are, ranked in painstaking order over the course of doing research for nearly a year, Rob from High Fidelity style. Find out more about why I embarked on a best 1,000 albums ever project.