Archaeology

Rutles | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (December 30, 2011)
• Original Release Date: October 29, 1996
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: VIRGIN
• ASIN: B000000WCF
• In-Print Editions: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #13,745 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #27 in Music > Miscellaneous > Comedy > Comedic Music > Comedy Rock

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

From a postmodern perspective, it's entirely fitting for the Rutles, the Beatles spoof band started by Eric Idle (Monty Python) and Neil Innes (Bonzo Dog Band) in 1978, to come back in the mid-'90s. After all, the Beatles did with Anthology, the albums and the documentary. Hence the new Rutles release, Archaeology. But as Spinal Tap proved with its 1992 comeback album, the joke is never as funny the second time around. In any event, the 16 songs on Archaeology are smartly written, deftly recorded, spot-on parodies of the Beatles tunes we hear daily in elevators and dentists' offices. You knew they would be. "Major Happy's Up and Coming Once Upon A Good Time Band" takes on "Sgt. Pepper's," of course, and segues neatly into "Rendezvous," in which the Rutles' drummer is none too happy to get a little help from his friends. "Joe Public" lovingly skewers "Tomorrow Never Knows," as well as the concept of mass-market merchandising, while the single and video "Shangri-La" mix "Magical Mystery Tour" and "All You Need Is Love." But towards the end, the Rutles are running so short on material that they're parodying solo Ringo ("Easy Listening") and Wings ("Eine Kleine Middle Klasse Musik"). The question is: Why bother? The original did all this the first time. The Beatles satirize themselves whenever they attempt anything new. (Don't forget the Traveling Wilburys, or McCartney's foray into ambient house with Youth as the fireman. And let's not even start with Richard Starkey.) And you can hear the ultimate Beatles goof just about any time you turn on modern-rock radio. It's name is Oasis, and if there's a better argument that it's time for phony Beatlemania to bite the dust, I have yet to hear it. Jim Derogatis

Product Description

Archaeology by The Rutles

This product is manufactured on demand using CD-R recordable media. Amazon.com's standard return policy will apply.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Rutlemania Redux, March 10, 2000

By 

Steve Vrana (Aurora, NE) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Archaeology (Audio CD)

With the release of the Beatles' Anthology series, it was inevitable that the surviving Rutles would follow suit and dig into their vaults to serve up a CD-ful of outtakes, alternate versions and previously unreleased songs that weren't considered strong enough for the original Rutles' albums like Ouch!, A Hard Day's Rut or Tragical History Tour.

Too bad it took the tragic death of Dirk McQuickly for the surviving Rutles to comb through the vaults to serve up this 16-track collection of bits and pieces of Rutlemania. While these songs were never intended for official release, it provides a rare glimpse into the the previously unreleased vaults of perhaps the most overrated band in the history of popular music. Tracks like "Joe Public" clearly show the undeniable effects of tea abuse among the Rutles. Drummer Barry Wom was usually limited to a single vocal per album, and it's a joy to hear him on "Rendezvous," a track that would have fit in nicely on Sgt Rutters. There's an extended combined edit of "Hey Mister!" but it's not the long-rumored three-hour version. "Shagri-La" could have been as big a hit as "Good Times Roll" or "Doubleback Alley." Confessional songs like "Don't Know Why" point the direction Ron Nasty's career would take after the break-up of the Rutles. With talk of a Rutles' reunion now a moot point, the lyrics to "Back in '64" resonate with new meaning: "Life is too short to be small...so, so long...it's all over." RECOMMENDED

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Patience will be Rewarded, February 21, 2003

By 

Gontroppo "Music and Theology Lover" (Bathurst, NSW Australia) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Archaeology (Audio CD)

At first, this album appears a pale imitation of The Rutles soundtrack album. But after listening a couple of times, I fell in love with Archeology, too. The wit is not sledgehammer, but it is there. Many of the songs were written by Neil Innes years ago and have now been given "the full Rutles treatment."

There is plenty of parody here, especially of The Beatles' Anthology project. This collection contains some of Innes' most insightful lyrics. As Homer Simpson says, It's funny because it's true.

Here are some of my favourites:
Major Happy's Up and Coming Once Upon A Good Time Band [Guess which song it parodies!], appropriately followed by a very amusing poke at With a Little Help From My Friends called Rendezvous

Questionnaire sounds like Fool On the Hill meets Imagine AND I Am the Walrus!

Lonely-Phobia sounds like it comes from the Help era, with acoustic guitars and serious lyrics that betray its earlier origin

The Knicker-Elastic King is another Penny Lane parody, in the style of Doubleback Alley
Here is a snippet:
Knicker Elastic - essence of propriety
Knicker Elastic - upholder of society

The price of raw materials
coupled with inflation
squeezed his global holdings
his liquid assets bottomed out
and shrunk his retail outlet operation

Eine Kleine Middle Klasse Musik is in the style of Not Guilty and has bitingly satrical lyrics, which Innes admits, mock his own lifestyle as much as anybody else's.
Another lyric extract:
Look at all the nice things money can buy
Every day there's more and more
Do you ever stop and wonder why
you need to lock your door?

Loneliness is all that
people ever share
Smuggling their pain through
'Nothing To Declare'
Living next to people
who agree to disagree
Happy in a pie-chart
society

Shangri-La is a fun song, which sounds like it could have come from Abbey Road, but with a For No One horn solo, and a long, singalong, Hey Jude-type ending.

Great fun. Highly recommended.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thanks for all the fish, December 6, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Archaeology (Audio CD)

Quite apart from the fact that Neil Innes, John Halsey and Ricky Fataar get it spot-on every time with these send-ups of The Beatles, it's also evident that they loved both the original source material and its' creators. The main reference points seem to be late-period rather than early-period Fab Four, but the Prefab (Three) Four also visit that earlier time now and again, and all of it's done up well. What's especially nice is that many of these songs hold up on their own even after you've "gotten" the joke. "I Love You" won't make anyone forget "And I Love Her" or "If I Fell," but it's actually a sweet little song in it's own write (thanks, John!) and I at least find myself humming it as much as anything the Beatles actually wrote.

The most disquieting song, however, is "Don't Know Why," where it's almost as if John Lennon has been channeled from the void for one last comment about Beatlemania and what it all meant. Innes and Company make no bones about it; "it" (Beatlemania, the Sixties, etc.) was fun while it lasted and it's all over now. Certainly a sentiment Lennon would have approved of, but it won't blunt your enjoyment of this great collection.