Sicks:Barnes & Barnes

Artist: Barnes & Barnes

Date Released: 1986

Label: Rhino / Oglio (reissue)

Produced By: Barnes & Barnes

Tracklisting:
 * 1) If You Wanna Be Happy
 * 2) Homophobic Dream #22
 * 3) Pussy Whipped
 * 4) Dead Baby Hunt
 * 5) Pizza Face
 * 6) Lick Lap
 * 7) Scary Love
 * 8) Pineapple Princess
 * 9) Sit On My Lap And Call Me Daddy
 * 10) Baby Come Home
 * 11) Love Button
 * 12) Pre-School Games
 * 13) Smelly Finger Blues
 * 14) I Hate The Boss
 * 15) Auto Suck
 * 16) I Married Mama
 * 17) Worse Than Slime
 * 18) Blithering #2
 * 19) The Ballad Of Scott Erhlich
 * 20) I Had Sex With Santa
 * 21) The Ballad Of Hall And Oates
 * 22) What's New Pussycat
 * 23) Condomized
 * 24) Vowels
 * 25) When You Die #2

(Tracks 15-25 only available on CD issue)

Review: After Voobaha, this is the best-selling Barnes & Barnes album. It's the only other one that's all comedy; after Amazing Adult Fantasy didn't sell quite as well as expected, Rhino demanded the next Barnes & Barnes record be a straight-up novelty album, and they complied. As such, it's not quite as successful -- you can kind of hear how let-down Barnes & Barnes were feeling by not being allowed to do what they entirely wanted, but that's not to say the songs are phoned-in or anything. Barnes & Barnes took this album seriously and there are some really great gems on here (including a couple lost Kodovoner songs!) -- especially the rocker "Pussy Whipped", their cover of Jimmy Soul's "If You Wanna Be Happy" (my grandfather's favorite song), and the dark "Dead Baby Hunt" (a song I will defend to my dying day -- Art Barnes has famously said that he wishes they never released that one -- I think finally come back around, but I love this song. It's not a comedy song, and I don't think it's intended to be; it's an atomospheric character sketch of a creepy, post-apocalyptic world -- a great analogue is Tubeway Army's best album Replicas). Not all of the songs work -- I really don't like "Homophobic Dream #22"; instrumentally, it's pretty, but lyrically, it's far too juvenile to support itself. (Strangely, the sequel, "Homophobic Dream #23" from Loozanteen is a much more mature song that's one of my favorites from that album.) The bonus tracks from this album also function as sort of a rarties compilation, as well -- "Blithering #2", "When You Die #2" and "What's New Pussycat" are the rest of the tracks released on Zabagabee (rendering that compilation redundant), "Worse Than Slime", "I Married Mama" and "Vowels" are all from Worse Than Slime, a various artists compilation put out by Beat Brothers. Unlike the other albums (aside from Voobaha, the bonus tracks are also all novelty songs. This isn't my favorite Barnes & Barnes album, and not one I'd recommend starting with (if you want to start with an all-comedy record, pick up the superior Voobaha first), but neither is it one to be dismissed.  Definitely pick this one up -- just not first.  (Although, then again, there are a lot of Barnes & Barnes fans who started with this album, so...) This reissue is only available online, through CoolCDs.com. - Rev. Syung Myung Me