It’s not as notorious as “Having Fun with Elvis on Stage” but it’s probably the most famous Elvis bootleg to actually contain music. Released on the “Dog Vomit Sux” label (a subsidiary of “Dead Obese Guy Enterprises”), Elvis’s Greatest Shit kifes shitty b-sides and soundtrack songs and presents them in a lovingly disrespectful package. The goal, apparently, was to remind people that Elvis was human.

Honestly, it compares favourably to Roy Orbison’s efforts at making disco, or Brian Wilson’s rapping, or the more ghoulish Beatles songs such as “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer.” Greatest Shit isn’t as musically intolerable as you might think or hope. The main reason? It has Elvis singing on it.

As a performer, he’s too good, and he keeps making these bad songs sound better than they have a right to be. “Old McDonald Had A Farm” made me laugh at the start, but then Elvis’s timeless baritone got me under its spell. The songwriting is consistently dreadful, but that doesn’t mean the songs are also consistently dreadful. The end result is often like a skilled poker player winning the river on a bad hand.

Elvis came from the period when albums existed to promote singles. Stab down a turntable needle at random on nearly any late 50s to early 60s LP and you’ll likely hear impaled bad music bleeding and writhing through your speakers. Elvis was no exception – even his some of his supposed classics sound boring and uninspired to me. I don’t believe “Now or Never” have been a hit without the push of the Elvis name behind it.

A lot of these songs come from soundtracks – specifically, films from his flower-necklace-and-hawaiian-guitar days, and obviously they sound odd with no context. And a lot of them are gag songs, with comical lyrics – “(There’s) No Room to Rhumba in a Sports Car” takes a courageous stand against dancing inside moving vehicles, and “US Male” (often considered the album’s classic) is full of funny chauvinism.

The packaging’s a hoot, too. The back cover contains images of nonexistent Elvis LPs “Dead on Stage in Las Vegas, Aug 20th 1977” and a vocal duet with Richard Nixon. The front cover contains the iconic picture of Elvis lying in his coffin – ultimate proof that Elvis was human.

Rhapsody of Fire recorded together for nearly twenty years, and seemed like they’d last forever. But, as Hewlett-Packard Lovecraft said, even death may die. The band schismed in 2011, with guitarist Luca Turilli and keyboardist Alex Starapoli forming separate versions of Rhapsody. Dark Wings of Steel is the first Luca-less album. Call it a “friendly split”, whatever. We all know there’s a shocking story involving a haddock, a pressurized pump, and the bassist’s mother in there somewhere.

Looks like Nuclear Blast made the right call by going with Turilli’s Rhapsody, because this album is chintzy, cheap-sounding, and unworthy of the Rhapsody of Fire name. The band literally comes up short of Triumph and Agony (rightly regarded as their worst album up to this point). Where to begin? It’s Situation Abnormal, All Fucked Up.

The production is not dense and layered, as in past albums. The symphonics aren’t “real orchestra” so much as “real VST samples on Starapoli’s computer.” Dark Wings has a fake, synthetic quality that I dislike immensely. And what’s with the crappy brutal guitar tone? Rhapsody was never famous for its guitar sound, but at least Turilli’s tone fit with the massive orchestral and symphonic backdrops. New guitarist Roby De Micheli has a dry, midscooped sound reminiscent of a Crate practice amp – annoying and inappropriate. Add in weak-as-fvck drumming that couldn’t knock the froth off a double-latte, and you have the new Rhapsody – an album that’s sure to have elderly neighbours banging on your door, demanding that you turn it up to help facilitate their afternoon nap.

Two good songs – that’s it. Not three, four, or five. Two. The first is “A Tale of Magic”, which has an excellent chorus. The second is “Dark Wings of Steel”, with fast zigzagging rhythms and interesting contrapuntal ideas.

The other songs are like quarantined hospital patients dying of various diseases. Some are poorly written and forgettable, with no catchy parts or good hooks. Others try far too hard to be Rhapsody and provoke laughter – “Silver Lake of Tears” is particularly horrible. Rhapsody’s music is almost parodic already, taking the joke any further is crass. Fabio Leone’s vocals are still powerful, but he’s an overrated singer and he’s really exposed in this new stripped-back format. The shitbox production kills any atmopshere.

Last year Luca Turilli’s Rhapsody released Ascending to Infinity, which got right everything this new Rhapsodomy album gets wrong. It has lush, organic production, great songs, excellent playing, and a cohesive musical style. Ascending didn’t quite match Rhapsody’s best work, but it utterly embarasses Starapoli on this new release.

Are you a fan? Go listen to whatever Luca Turilli is working on, because HE is Rhapsody of Fire. Everyone else was dead weight, and this album proves it.

The good news: Megadeth and Black Sabbath both have new albums out, so this isn’t quite the disappointment of the year

In 2006, Chris and his virtual band of hedgehogs set the world on fire. Now, they’re ready to do it all again – and no troll, no jerk, no pair of DIRTY, CRAPPED BRIEFS will get in their way.

While the first album had Chris singing karaoke-style over Britney Spears and Backstreet Boys songs, Chris’s tastes have broadened (like his physique) and now includes artists like Madonna, Meatloaf, and Bruce Springsteen. “Trollsta’s Paradise”, is sung over “Gangsta’s Paradise” by Coolio, and is a blistering attack on the trolls and 4channers who have made his life a misery. Chris might hate black people, but that doesn’t mean he can’t appreciate gangsta rap, just as hating gay people has never stopped him from putting objects up his ass on occasion. You have to be open-minded about some things.

The next song is a remake of “Like a Virgin”, a topic Chris can speak on with some authority. Chris’s dulcet tones are hard to hear on this one, Madonna’s voice is about twice as loud as his mic volume. There’s one song that has Chris singing without any musical accompaniment – a creepy cover of Minnie Riperton’s “Loving You” where he sounds like Herbert from Family Guy. Doesn’t Herbert have a crush on a character called Chris? There you go, then.

This album comes from the period when he was dating a girl troll called Ivy, and his new amorata finds her way into many of the modified lyrics. “I’m Sexy For My Ivy” is sung over Justin Timberlake’s “Sexyback”, which was a hit song merely three years prior to this “album” being made – remarkably early to the party by Chris’s standards. He has some trouble remembering his own lyrics and staying on the beat. I blame young love.

Ivy apparently owns a pair of hermit crabs called Crass and Champ, and Chris really took a liking to them. Meatloaf’s “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” gets redone into a song about the crabs making love at the beach. I don’t know if Ivy ever got around to telling Chris that Crass and Champ are both male.

The album is curious in that it could be interpreted as Chris finally starting to grow up. Hardly any of the songs are about videogames or pokemon or Sonichu. The only time Chris’s fictional characters get to strut their stuff is in the final song, “Punchy and Layla’s Dance In The Dark,” where they do a lot more than strutting. The final lyrics are “I’ll throw my best punches!
Hwah! Hwah!” Can someone get Layla to a battered woman’s shelter?

Surely no recommendation is needed, but suffice to say that the Hedgehog Boys have done it again. Get this album now, and please don’t put it up your ass.