Smell No Evil

Smell No Evil of Ookla The Mok is a filk album. I never heard of this music genre, but I did not miss much. It is an album that is supposed to be funny and is centred around a monkey theme. The humour is of daddy joke kind. Boring, unremarkable, tongue-in-cheek and always harmless. Like Beavis in Butthead and then translate all the dirt to ape synonyms. "heh heh monkey, bananas, heh heh". The result is devastating to my mood and irritates as hell. Compared to this Weird Al and Barenaked Ladies are the sharpest tools in the shed. I don't know what the expected audience is, not children, but probably people that do not want something complicated or unpredictable and certainly not anything offensive. The music is also very mediocre.

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Points for committing to the bit I guess? Not to be an uptight no-fun asshole, but this was way too goofy and overdone for my taste. Narrative LPs always tread a fine line for me, and the bone-dry, uncreative instrumentals did nothing to lift the silly stories here to anything tolerable. I've always had an awareness of filk (even though I didn't know the genre name until today), and it can be done well, Jonathan Coulton being a shining example. This does not shine – it takes one joke, beats the absolute hell out of it, and loses its way about 20 minutes in, saddling its listener with 40 minutes of shit afterwards. Makes self-aware apology from the band at the end more frustrating than funny, and makes me even angrier this was the one (1) album I got to listen to today before working a 12-hour shift.

Someone has defo put this on as a joke!

Oh wow you're so wacky

Holy shit insufferable! It's like someone took all the wrong lessons from Barenaked Ladies, They Might Be Giants, and several other bands I like.

This is one silly hell of an album. That doesn't mean I didn't like it though. Filk is a genre I never even heard of, but I think it has a new fan!

This is a perfect example of what should be on the list. I've known about filk for a long time but never listened to it. Listening to this is exactly what I imagined it would be. It's very similar to Jonathan Coulton, who is great and operates in similar circles in terms of nerd / geek music, and, to be fair, postdates this but definitely is more professional. Nonetheles, even though I think the concept is silly, I think this is the kinda stuff that should be on the list. Filk occupies that weird space in sci-fi/fantasy conventions and absolutely should be listened to. It's niche, weird, but it's a culture that makes music that more people should be aware of. As someone who doesn't know the genre, I can't speak to whether this is the best it has or if there is a better album out there, but it's very worthy inclusion . My personal rating: 3/5 My rating relative to the list: 3/5 Should this have been included on the original list? Yes.

What is these guys obsession with Monkeys all about.

Filk. Demasiado "artificial". Letras absurdas. No me va. Un 2.

Jesus Christ

I love a great comedy album and this checked off all my boxes. Weird al and tenacious d are some of my favorite, but I definitely will listen to this one again and be seeking out more of their discography.

TIL about Filk? This is super fun and the kind of stuff I like to see pop up on the list

Ok this wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. I remember downloading the Hockey Monkey song on Limewire back in the day. Never heard of the genre but was a fun Wiki read. This was fun, go easy on it. Curb Your Dogma was wild.

Had never heard of this band. It was an enjoyable enough listen. I won’t be rushing to put more on, but enjoyed the time with it anyway.

Eh, it was fine

The most 2000s music imaginable

If Weird Al was a monkey. They Might Be Monkeys? The kind of thing I usually find charming but not in this serving size.

29 songs about monkeys, go figure

It's quite interesting and goofy in places. I've not heard of this genre 'filk' before but it takes all sorts I guess. I used to 'do' Comic and Sci-Fi conventions as a kid but never came across any dedicated bands........shame.

Rating: 6/10 Best songs: Hockey monkey, Two monkeys

I never heard (or at least never absorbed) the term Filk before this, but recognized what it was immediately on reading up on the topic. Frankly the genre name and its origin very much exemplifies a key pet peeve about fandom: being way too enamored for way too long with an inside joke that wasn't that funny in the first place. I'm the precise age for the bandname reference, having watched said cartoon unironically during its original run, and have been at least strongly adjacent to the nerd culture that produce this kinf of thing all my life, but I could never get into the true fandom scene and this is fandom stuff all the way. As side hustle musicians they are very competent, and it's lyrically clever - though I'm not sure that cleverness ends up saying much and they depend overly on that trick you see some rappers pull of just stringing together references fast and facilely but with dubious point. A full hour is a bit much for "theme is munky". Still, generally unobjectionable.

3.5

Entertaining with a sort of Barenaked Ladies/Weird Al Yankovic vibe. I can imagine these guys would be popular on the convention circuit. Lots of fun callbacks throughout.

Disco diferente, con variedad de estilos desde la parte más suave hacia otras vertientes algo más intensas. Todo centrado en la temática de monos (¿?). Original y llamativo, que podía aportar más, pero que se puede escuchar y te deja cierta indiferencia.

Filk? Alright we're just making up genres at this point. Quite possibly the geekiest thing I've ever heard in my life. So geeky that it makes TMBG sound like death metal. I see the appeal, but it's not something I'd ever listen to on my own.

Smell No Evil isn't good, it's a bit of a pisstake of an album in several ways and lacks any real musical quality, therefore it gets a 1.

Maybe the joke has gone on for too long... And by that, I'm not sure whether I'm talking about this amateur-sounding album, or this users list when duds such as *Smell No Evil* pop up, or mankind and the space it takes up on this fragile blue marble of a planet, along with the myriad of stupid sounds it produces on a daily basis. Those sounds are sadly drowning out whatever beautiful or truly inspiring piece of music said mankind somehow manages to create once in a while. So how are you gonna plead aliens not to wipe us out after that, huh? The irony that what I have written up there could be used as inspiration for a "filk" song has not escaped me -- I'm very much a science fiction geek myself, you know... But I'll let the misguided user who suggested this particular dud mull over that irony first. If that person can sing -- hopefully better than the guys from Ookla The Mok -- and if they can play the guitar, maybe they can write a song about the pointless noise mankind routinely sends to outside star systems. That song will probably be more pointless noise itself, but what do I know? 🤷 PS: if I hear the word "monkey" once more today, I swear I'm gonna strangle someone. If ever I'm tried for murder, I'll have no choice but to call Ookla The Mok and the user who suggested this album to testify. You've been warned. ---- 1/5 for the purposes of this list of essential albums. 4/10 for more general purposes: 3 for the musicianship and production values + 1 for the artistry A note on that last word, *artistry*: "Craft" might be a better word for the 100% derivative music on this record. Yet you have many examples of "craft" that are more effective, more directly endearing, and more moving out there in the world, so I'm not even sure I would go there... To be fair, the second section of "Challenge Of The Space Monkeys" offers such an endearing moment. But it only comes at the very end of this overlong record, and after all the pain and suffering I had to endure before that last-minute reprieve, do you really think it's gonna change my overall grade? Well, it's not so overly "complicated" to see it won't. ---- Number of albums from the original list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 465 Albums from the original list I *might* include in mine later on: 288 Albums from the original list I won't include in mine: 336 ---- Number of albums from the users list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 58 Albums from the users list I *might* select for mine later on: 78 Albums from the users list I won't select for mine: 142 (including this one) ---- Émile, part three... Moi aussi je vais essayer de faire court pour la 3e partie, surtout que je m'y suis mis tard pour te répondre aujourd'hui... "Ça m'a aussi fait réaliser que je suis genre immunisé au kitsch? (...) C'est peut-être la même sensation que de voir tes oncles/tantes qui s'habillent avec les mêmes vêtements qu'ils portaient quand ils avaient 20 ans." Ben c'est super bien décrit, avec cette métaphore-là. Après, le kitsch, pour moi, c'est toujours une affaire de subjectivité, de toute manière. En gros, si t'as de l'affection pour l'oncle ou la tante en question, tu peux trouver ça "endearing" leurs fringues flashy... Mais si ce sont de gros relous dans les repas de famille, les mêmes fringues flashy qui font saigner les yeux empirent forcément la chose. Après c'est aussi une affaire de cycles, je pense. À un moment, selon les "anti-modes", c'est le dad rock, à un autre le funk, à un autre encore, tout autre chose... Quand j'étais ado, par exemple, j'ai eu un rejet viscéral des années 80. Tout ces synthés et ces gated drums que l'on subissait au travers de tounes de marde qui passaient à la télé en permanence. L'horreur. C'était devenu viscéralement "kitsch" dans les nineties. C'est d'ailleurs pour ça que quand tu découvres un truc comme Sonic Youth dans les nineties -- alors qu'ils existaient depuis le début des eighties, en fait, mais que c'était tellement niche que ça n'existait juste pas dans la culture mainstream -- je te jure que tu te mets *enfin* à respirer. *ENFIN* un truc qui pue pas le fric et les années Reagan. ENFIN un truc qui a l'air vivant, dangereux, imprévisible. Je te mets l'exemple de SY, mais selon les jeunes en question, ça pouvait très bien être du hardcore ou du rock rap à la RATM... Pour prendre l'exemple le plus parlant, je suis pas certain que tous les jeunes de ton âge peuvent comprendre la libération que Nirvana a représenté à l'époque. Ça restait du music business, en vrai. Mais leur succès, c'était aussi le gros doigt d'honneur que tout le monde attendait. Mais je m'égare... Surtout que ce qui est paradoxal, c'est que j'avais aussi, en parallèle, des guilty pleasures de synth-pop que j'avais classifié comme kitsch suite à la "révolution alternative". Et comme ces sons-là sont revenus par la petite porte ensuite, j'ai pu faire la part des choses, et me dire qu'il y jamais de guilty pleasures sur le long terme. En fait, le vrai problème, c'est surtout quand les compos et/ou l'interprétation sont mauvaises (et il y en avait en fait un sacré lot aussi dans la musique dite "alternative" des années 90, quand tu reviens dessus). Mais quand elles le sont avec un son ou une esthétique qui t'a fait souffrir, en quelque sorte, parce que "trop" populaire à un moment, c'est là que ta perception subjective du kitsch surgit le plus violemment. Le premier réflexe, c'est le rejet viscéral. Un autre bon exemple pour moi, c'est justement Jean-Michel Jarre, dont je parlais pour décrire Ping Pong Go. Dans les années 90, n'importe quel jeune à la cool t'aurait dit que c'était kitsch. Et moi qui avait grandi avec ça gamin (par ailleurs fan de science-fiction), j'avais honte, ha ha. Sauf que ce que je n'ai compris qu'ensuite, c'est qu'il y a *deux* Jean-Michel Jarre : celui d'Oxygène et Équinoxe, ses deux premiers albums, qui sont poétiques, hypnotiques, à la "ligne claire", pas forcément tape-à-l'œil. Et celui qui est venu ensuite, avec des compos, des harmonies et des sons plates et laids, en plus boursouflés par la production eighties (celui de "Rendez-Vous"). Je défendrai toujours le premier. Le second sera à jamais définitivement kitsch pour moi (alors que j'ai tout aimé gamin). Voilà, je sais pas si ça éclaire ta lanterne, c'est juste ma version toute perso du concept. Ce qui me permet d'en remettre une couche sur Ping Pong Go, que je pourrais trouver kitsch dans le mauvais sens du terme, mais que j'aime premier degré. C'est juste tellement dommage qu'ils soient si "underground", ou plutôt pas foutu de faire connaître leur musique comme il faut. Mais ça, ça demande des compétences de promo et de démerde que tous les musiciens n'ont pas. On ne peut donc pas leur en vouloir... Je note le nom d'Angine de Poitrine. Pas encore eu le temps de checker le spectacle sur YouTube, mais c'est dans ma "to do list". Je t'en parlerai peut-être dans un prochain message... Cool que tu écoute Yoo II avec Nolan Porter. J'écoute aussi pas mal le Yoo Doo Right d'avant, comme je te l'ai déjà dit, je crois. Et merci de me faire découvrir des trucs de par chez toi. Tu sais que je peux être lent à m'y mettre. Mais je finis toujours par y aller. Gotta go, it's late now. See ya. 😉