Cornology [3CD Set] [Import]

Bonzo Dog Band | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (September 30, 1993)
• Number of Discs: 3
• Format: Import
• Label: EMI Import
• ASIN: B000006TDV
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #214,883 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

Disc: 1

1. Cool Britannia

2. The Equestrian Statue

3. Jollity Farm

4. I Left My Heart In San Francisco

5. Look Out, There's A Monster Coming

6. Jazz, Delicious Hot, Disgusting Cold

See all 27 tracks on this disc

Disc: 2

1. Hunting Tigers Out In 'Indiah'

2. Shirt

3. Tubas In The Moonlight

4. Dr. Jazz

5. Monster Mash

6. I'm The Urban Spaceman

See all 25 tracks on this disc

Disc: 3

1. My Brother Makes The Noises For The Talkies

2. I'm Going To Bring A Watermelon To My Girl Tonight

3. Alley Oop

4. Button Up Your Overcoat

5. Mr. Apollo (Single Version) (German Version)

6. Ready Mades

See all 20 tracks on this disc

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Really wild General - thank you, sir, December 24, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Cornology [3CD Set] (Audio CD)

If you're only going to get one Bonzos collection on CD, this is the one to have. It's the most comprehensive - 72 tracks, including the whole of each of their five albums: Gorilla, The Doughnut in Granny's Greenhouse, Tadpoles, Keynsham and their 1972 reunion album, Let's Make Up And Be Friendly. And there are some extras, or "Dog Ends" as they are described, including their quite splendid debut single, My Brother Makes The Noises For The Talkies. The accompanying notes on the Bonzos by Brian Hogg include such delightful details as that their hit single I'm The Urban Spaceman was produced by Paul McCartney under the pseudonym Apollo C Vermouth. Apparently McCartney agreed to do it after Vivian Stanshall met him in a pub. The notes also point out that the Bonzos were part of the new wave of British comedy in the 1960s which led to Monty Python's Flying Circus. It's an interesting parallel - in the Bonzos' whimsical lyrics one can hear prototype Python dialogue, and in the way they borrowed earlier styles and subverted them one could see a musical precursor to Terry Gilliam's animations. But The Bonzo Dog (Doo Dah) Band are best appreciated on their own terms. Here is the work of a group of people of considerable musical ability and rich comic imagination, having a great time taking musical, comic and social conventions and turning them upside down. It's an approach which has stood the test of time. Enjoy.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bonzo Goes to Collage, April 22, 2000

By 

vxppl (GA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cornology [3CD Set] (Audio CD)

All the Bonzo albums (here packaged as a definitive archive) are funny, but calling them comedy albums is like classifying the Patrick McGoohan series The Prisoner as a sitcom. The many parodies here have their serious side--typically a lambast of the poverty of pop culture, but Keynsham (tracks 39-52) is a nightmarish descent whose only parallels are Dante's Inferno and Kafka's The Trial (which also have their humorous moments). Keynsham is a concept album about concepts, about the prisons we build for ourselves, only we don't think of them as prisons because we build them ourselves, and we're proud of the little decorative touches, and because we'll take the trite over the beautiful anyday. (In "Sport," "it's an odd boy who doesn't like sport" and who would rather read Mallarme under a tree than play football). In the Gilbert and Sullivanish finale, "Busted," policeman and pothead set out on a jolly chase ("running like a rabbit from a frisky poodle") but the free spirit (who's free because he sleeps on the beach and thinks "it would do more good to try / and understand the other guy") ultimately gets "busted, by the law." Fortunately the next Bonzo album, Let's Make Up and Be Friends (tracks 59-69) returns to parody and pastiche, comic relief from the despair (except there is that final track with the mechanical laughter...). Keynsham is probably the profoundest and darkest work of rock/pop, and civilization should be grateful the Bonzos didn't push the envelope any further.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The intro and the outro and the middletro too!, October 22, 2001

By 

Mr. S. A. Lukacs "Simbob" (england) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Cornology [3CD Set] (Audio CD)

There is nothing like the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band out there. Nothing at all. Listening to this "cornology" could only lead you to one conclusion - this music could not have been made by human beings. And you'd be half right, really, for Vivien Stanshall, the late driving force of the Bonzos, could definately be described as from another planet.
The album has a quintissentially British sense of wit, of being able to poke fun at ones self. It also contains the most askewed view on life and music you are ever likely to hear. Traditional music hall, put through a rock mangler, washed in a psychedellic washing machine and then dried in a satirical tumble dryer, is the best description of this collection of the bizarre, the brilliant, and the incisive. There are no apt words for these albums, but they take you on a journey from which you may never fully recover but you'll probably enjoy. These are musically gifted people (including future Monty Python collaborator and Rutle Neil Innes) having a whale of a time and masterly subverting genre and perception of class and social structure.
The best of the five albums included is Gorilla, a laugh riot from start to finish, without the pretensiousness that sometimes (though not often) creeps into the later albums. Stand out tracks are the absolute classic "The into and the outro" the spot on jazz spoof "Big shot" the instrumental piece "Music for the head ballet" and the strangely disturbing "Look out there's a monster coming." But there are gems littered throughout, such as "Hunting tigers out in INDIAH", the bouncy "Ali Baba's Camel" and the band's biggest hit "The Urban Spaceman."
All though other members of the band deserve merit, the real star of the show is Stanshall, a talent of which the phrase "a one-off" was coined for. It is his bizarre genius that shines through, as he fronts many of the tracks with his oh-so-British accent. A delight from start to finish. Go on - treat yourself.