My Week with Muppet Music – Tuesday

All-New Nostalgia
Tuesday, July 16

In our last episode, the 90’s Muppet revolution began with a re-release of 70’s Muppet Show material. Basically, the Muppets said, “Hey, look, we’re back,” and then celebrated with a nostalgia trip. But then they did something new with that nostalgia, and brought out 1993’s Muppet Beach Party, an album of all-new Muppet cover songs. Which should have been a brilliant idea — cashing in on the Muppet resurgence with a triumphant, goofy album of reinvented songs. Um, except that most of those songs date back to the 70’s.

So, the problem is that Henson Productions was trying to make the Muppets popular by releasing an album that would’ve been nostalgic back when the Muppets were popular. And I’m no business strategist or pop culture historian, but I don’t think the public were exactly clamoring for a big surf music comeback anymore than they were clamoring for a big Muppet comeback. My only comfort is that the “beach party” idea won out over an even worse suggestion, like barbershop, say, or Bulgarian percussion-based reggae.

So we’ve got a surf album, and hey, lookit all them Beach Boys songs: “Surfin’ USA,” “Surfin'”, “Fun Fun Fun” — even the execrable but seemingly obligatory “Kokomo” gets a run. That’s gotta be fun. Except, well, as much fun as Beach Boys sing-alongs are in the car, if you’re going to put them on an album, they’ve really got to be done well. Is it wrong to criticize a Muppet album for covering songs that require better performances than the Muppets are allowed to give? I guess my problem is, if you’re in the mood to hear “Surfin’ USA,” you play a Beach Boys album. So the only time you’d want to play this one would be if you’re in the mood to hear a not-quite-right version of “Surfin’ USA.”

But, of course, it IS wrong to criticize a Muppet album on the musical performances. It’s just that, well, “Fun Fun Fun” is actually a pretty good version, but Jerry Nelson’s more-than-competent lead vocal as Robin, no matter how (ahem) fun, kind of makes me long for a serious lead vocal — say, Jerry Nelson as Floyd, or even Jerry Nelson as Jerry Nelson.

“Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini,” sung by Kermit and Piggy, is also kinda fun, but the song was always irredeemably silly, and adding puppets to the mix doesn’t really help in the musical integrity stakes. So let’s leave musical integrity aside for a moment and ask, “Is it funny?” The answer is, yeah, once or twice. Just maybe not funny enough to sit through “Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini” too many times.

Oh, there’s good stuff here — “Under the Boardwalk” and “Walkin’ On Sunshine” both especially benefit from Kevin Clash’s terrific singing voice; “Wipe Out” is another great vehicle for Animal, and “Sugar Shack,” as performed by Rizzo and Gonzo, is the perfect marriage of concept, performance and material — it’s as close as it’s possible to come to the ideal Muppet cover song. But it’s also “Sugar Shack.”

And this is the whole problem with the album. No matter how good it is, it’s still just a damn beach party album, which was never going to sell to anybody but hardcore Muppet fans and really hardcore Brian Wilson completists. And look at me — I’m both, and I still can’t quite bring myself to entirely like it.

But because I’m more the former than the latter, I still can’t quite bring myself to dislike it, either.

by Kynan Barker