Customer Reviews

Simply Reprehensible

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I LOVE this album! My absolute favorite track is the one they did on Star Wars entitled "Starr's War" HILARIOUS! And the one sung by the "Rev." Jessie Jackson "Jailhouse Vote" was cool too. Things just keep getting better and better for the writers who create these incredible works or art!

Shanklin is up to his old tricks and it is funnier than ever! Simply Reprehensible is Simply funny! With out a doubt Paul Shanklin has another sure-fire winner on his hands with this album. Simply Reprehensible takes a shot at everyone and no one is safe anymore.

The Washington beltway should be put on notice that Shanklin's latest, and probably his best; recording is 32 tracks of real genius. Shanklin's voice characterizations will keep laughing and the parodies will keep you thinking.

Tracks like the title track, "All my shady friends", "Rose Garden", "Viagra", "Subpeonaville", "Unconvictable" and the other 26 tracks will bring back memories of the President and his antics. With a message in every song, they're something for everyone in this recording.

Carvel, Kennedy, Gore, Bob and Elizabeth Dole, Bill and Hillary and many more are all here just waiting to be heard. Conservative or Liberal, Republican or Democrat, you're bound to find something to laugh at and laugh you will!

Another GREAT album from Paul Shanklin! This one has super parodies from the Rush Limbaugh Show, like the title track, but also has great new tracks that weren't on the show! Songs like "Viagra!" sung by a Walter Brennen sound a-like! What a roar! Not to forget the comedy bits, like "Starr's War", the take off on Star Wars! too funny! This album is a MUST HAVE for all Limbaugh and educated comedt fans. Nothing filthy or nasty that you have to worry about the kids hearing. Put this one in your shopping cart, NOW!

I don't know what the official reviewer uses for brains, but I would suggest he look into a replacement set. What is an attempt to get out the jailhouse vote, after all, if not an attempt to get murderers, rapists, and other thugs to vote? The song isn't racist dross at all; it simply mentions exactly what Jesse Jackson has both done and said as regards the subject. If that's ridiculous, well, then it is so because what Jesse Jackson has done and said is ridiculous.

As regards the other songs more generally, they're wonderfully clever parodies. Musically, Shanklin has a pretty good ear for matching the style of the performer whose work he's copying, and lyrically the man writes some very pointed and amusing stuff. If you're one of those folk who unthinkingly apply labels like 'extreme right wing', 'homophobic', 'racist', 'sexist', and so forth to anyone with whom you disagree, then this disc isn't for you. If you're one of the many thinking persons who thought Clinton and his cronies were jokes, then you'll have a good time laughing at them as parodied by Shanklin.

The Amazon revewer, Ian Conde, is full of beans. Shanklin's stuff is funny even if you love Clinton. Why can't people on the left develop a sense on humor? More importantly, what is Amazon doing with a reviewer whose polital agenda clouds his ability to critique?

In any event, the CD is funny end to end, but probably more so if you are not a fan in President Willie. Repeated playings bring out the subtleties that are not obvious on the first audition.

The one star reviews by 'a music fan' are illustrative of the big difference between Leftists and Conservatives in America. Conservatives simply don't get all pissy and whiney over the Left's 'parodies' of Conservative politicians, their families and friends, etc., whereas when one of the Left's icon's is made sport of, its racist bigoted mean-spiritedness, ad infinitum.

Paul Shanklin is the king of political parody, as many a Dittohead will attest, and political humor at Bill Clinton's expense never gets old to these ears. 1999's Simply Reprehensible is Shanklin's fifth album, and it finds him at the height of his voice impersonating power. He has never sounded more like Bill Clinton and James Carville, and he draws in a vast circle of Clinton's Democratic cronies for this very special album awash in the Monica Lewinsky scandal. He also expands his repertoire to add a few skits and songs having to do with other matters in the political eye, including such subjects as the militaristic militants in Montana, Viagra, spanking, and the fate of 60s protestors.

These 32 tracks, running just under an hour, can be broken down into 14 songs and 18 skits. As always, the musical parodies are what really matter the most, but the skits themselves can also be quite funny. Several are devoted to James Carville: in C-Spam Bookquotes, Carville waxes not so eloquent on his new book, quickly sinking into a castigation of Ken Starr; in Carville Shakespeare, Carville quickly discards the Bard's words for his own condemnation of Ken Starr; in A Free Society, he teams up with Larry Flynt to further bash Ken Starr; then, in Remember the Children, Carville goes door to door collecting guns, fatty foods, and subversive literature such as Bibles from the homes of soccer moms. Less personalized skits include E.D. featuring Bob and Elizabeth Dole, The Second Amendment (look it up in the Constitution - it's there), That's Disgusting featuring Gore's distaste for Clinton's unique means of encouraging the use of cigars, and A Poetic Moment with Reverend Jesse Jackson. The best skit by far, though, is Starr's War, a hilarious Star Wars parody. Starr's War Episode 1: The Female Menace stars Bill Clinton as Loose Skirtchaser, Ted Kennedy as Loose's mentor Obe-Drunk Kennedy. Janet Reno as the large, hairy Sue-tobacco; Barney Frank as RU-Me2, James Carville as James So-Loud, and Albert Gore Jr., in a very special cameo appearance, as the void of space.

The songs are not as impressive on the whole as what you will find on earlier Shanklin albums, but the title song and hilarious All My Shady Friends track stand among the best parodies Shanklin has ever done. Bill Clinton is featured prominently on most but not all of these. A dead Elvis Presley sings You'll Be Lonesome Tonight to all of his groupies, Walter Brennan or someone who sounds just like him sings Viagra, and an anonymous group musically asks Where Have Flower Children Gone? (they are "still in D.C., every one"). The remaining songs are all political, leading off with the Monica-inspired Ballad of the Black Beret. Jesse Jackson sings Rev. Jackson's Jailhouse Vote to the tune of Elvis' Jailhouse Rock, and Ross Perot rocks the house with I Won't Dance (Genesis' I Can't Dance). The remaining songs all feature Bill Clinton. Elvis' Return to Sender becomes Bill's plea to the Senate to Return With Censure. Bill begs for pardon, having said he was sorry in the Rose Garden (I Never Promised You a Rose Garden). He is accompanied by his own Statler Brothers-sounding group on the moving Flowers Back in Arkansas, tells Ms. Broadrick to Take a Number, Juanita ("I think you're number 5"), and laments Jimmy Buffet-like about being waist-deep again here in Subpoenaville (of course, there is a woman to blame). Hillary joins him on the Natalie and Nat King Cole-inspired classic Unconvictable.

The two best songs by far involve Clinton and all of his cronies. Simply Reprehensible, to the tune of Robert Palmer's Simply Irresistible, is a rocking Shanklin masterpiece featuring the voices of Al Gore, Ted Kennedy, James Carville, and Larry Flynt on the verses and Barney Frank and Bill Clinton on the choruses. Then, toward the end of the album, Hank Williams, Jr.'s All My Rowdy Friends becomes Bill Clinton's victorious All My Shady Friends, in which he thanks everyone who helped him get off completely for all the high crimes and misdemeanors he was guilty of. These two songs represent Shanklin at his most hilarious yet insightful and they alone, ignoring all the other entertaining tracks, make this album a welcome addition to the musical library of anyone who saw the Clinton Administration as a joke in and of itself.

More sophomoric drivel from a guy from Tennessee whose main claim to fame is that he can sound (sorta) like a guy from Arkansas. Quite a feat, huh? There's clever political commentary for thinking adults out there, but this one's strictly for the kiddies.

Simply put, this is not very funny, though I guess there are a few people in this world who still think GILLIGAN'S ISLAND is one of the highpoints of comedy. As do Limbaugh and that guy who wrote the EAT THE RICH book (as if he were in Swift's league as a writer!), Shanklin confirms for me that not only are conservatives not funny, they are truly meanspirited, banal, boring, and forgettable. Those who want to laugh at some music should go get an old Tom Lehrer record.