The Five Most Unintentionally Funny Albums of 2006

Music is rarely funny on purpose, but every year an endless supply of hilarious albums is unintentionally generated by clueless and/or pretentious musicians around the world. These artists don’t bring us joy through the pleasure of listening to their music, but by providing endless opportunities to ridicule them. So without further ado, here’s a list of 2006’s most unintentionally funny albums.

1. Inhuman Rampage by Dragon Force

This is DragonForce.

If you can't already tell from their photo or name (which was either devised by a fifth grader or based on some horrible Nintendo role-playing game), DragonForce is a metal band. But they're not just any metal band. DragonForce is a living, breathing, walking cliché of such epic proportions, it makes Spinal Tap seem like an actual documentary.

To truly illustrate just how cliché these guys really are, I took a look at the lyrics from DragonForce's recent eight-song epic album, Inhuman Rampage, and here's what I found:


Even with all the references to battles of steel and the burning of fire and flames, it's still pretty impressive that DragonForce was able to use the word "pain" an incredible 26 times in only eight songs (and that doesn't even count how many times it's repeated in the chorus). After listening to the lead singer's voice and watching their videos, it's most surprising that the word "pussy" doesn't appear once. That word was apparently not included with the Dungeons and Dragons magnetic poetry set the band used to write their lyrics.

Check out this video for more DragonForce hilarity:

2. The Life Pursuit by Belle and Sebastian Belle and Sebastian are trying to achieve the exact opposite image of DragonForce. A far cry from a raging metal band obsessed with burning flames of fire, these dandy fops want to bring you into their world of tea and crumpets, where unicorns and leprechauns pick daisies and talk about rainbows. Their music is the sound of two Smurfs hugging.

With songs like “We Are the Sleepyheads,” “Funny Little Frog” and “For the Price of a Cup of Tea,” The Life Pursuit is so ridiculously happy, it makes Care Bears look goth. It’s what the Powerpuff Girls would listen to if they won the lotto. And just check out some of the songs rumored to be on the band’s next release:

“Kisses for Grandma”
“Spoonin’ and a Cuddlin’”
“I Pooped a Cupcake”
“The Ballad of the Missing Testicles”

You’ve heard the stories of bands requesting copious amounts of booze and drugs backstage as part of their payment for performing. Belle and Sebastian have a stipulation in their contract that they must be provided with at least one dozen puppies and a gallon of vanilla ice cream before they go on stage.
3. Jibbs Feat Jibbs by Jibbs It’s been a big year for St. Louis. The city was recently named the nation’s most dangerous city, became home to the worst World Series champion team in the history of baseball and spawned Jibbs, the 15-year old rapper/genius behind the hit, “Chain Hang Low.” Sung to the tune of the kindergarten song “Do Your Ears Hang Low,” the chorus of Jibbs’ jam goes like this:

“Does yo chain hang low
Do it wobble to an fro
Does it shine in the light
Is it platinum, is it gold
Could you throw it over ya shoulda
If ya hot, to make ya cold
Do your chain hang low?”

Now, if hearing Jibbs try to sound hard while singing nursery rhymes doesn’t make you laugh, watching him surrounded by swirling computer-generated chains in his video certainly will:
The brilliance and originality of “Chain Hang Low” continues throughout Jibbs’ wittily titled debut album, “Jibbs Feat Jibbs.” Not only will a listen to Jibbs’ album expose you to mind-blowing metaphors such as “I got butter like Crisqo,” but it will also grace you with subtle choruses like:

“King Kong, king, king, king, king kong, king
King Kong, king, king, king, king Kong
If you hear before you see me
I got king kong in the trunk
King kong, king, king, king, king Kong, King
King Kong, King, King, King, King Kong
If you hear before you see me
I got King, I got King Kong”
4. Amputechture by Mars Volta Does it hurt when “glossolalia coats your skin?” Where can I find a nice new pair of “unkempt nourishment plows?” What are “castrating kisses stalactite stems?” I certainly don’t know, and neither do the members of Mars Volta who wrote these lyrics.

With their most recent album, this band version of that smartass kid in school who wouldn’t shut up in class furnishes us with 16-minute epics of squealing bullshit. After a few years of fooling 15-year old stoners with their endless prog jams and lyrics written by randomly picking words from the answers to yesterday’s

New York Times crossword puzzle, someone finally caught on to their charade and literally peed on them:
5. The Black Parade by My Chemical Romance Nobody knows why Queen worked. Maybe it was the ’70s. Maybe it was Freddie Mercury’s magical mustache. By all logic, a band fronted by a man wearing white spandex overalls who sings rock-operas about riding a bicycle should not work. But it did and unless you’re one of the many millions of people who find them incredibly annoying, Queen was good in a creative, tongue-in-cheek way, and that was that. Now comes the thing known as My Chemical Romance, a bunch of sniveling little pop-punk MTV cretins who think they can just throw on some marching band uniforms and recreate “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

Sure, Brian May could rock circles around My Chemical Romance. And yes, even with his head in a bucket of water Freddie could out-sing their weenie lead singer. But the most important thing here is that Queen had a sense of humor about their over-the-top rock, while My Chemical Romance takes it all so seriously. You think that in 20 years people will be performing karaoke to “Son when you grow up, would you be the savior of the broken, the beaten and the damned?” Or will they be screaming “Scaramouche, scaramouche, will you do the fandango?!” Epics are either really fun or kickass: you can either be funny and flamboyant like Queen or surly and awesome like Lynard Skynard. But you can’t shop at Hot Topic and cry about your daddy.