Monty Python's Contractual Obligation Album

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Customer reviews

review by: date: 2008-09-15 rating:
Not only fot the fans
Admittedly, not all the tracks are equally hillarious, but it's the same with MP's (Monthy Python's) TV series and films... This album works as an album;
the track with Palin's "Bishop" doing a dumb radio commercial is brilliant, John Cleese is usually wonderfull as a rabid advertiser and the song... Well, let me tell you there are some quit funny, zany (and sometimes not quite politically correct, God bless them!) songs here -
"I like Chinese", "Never be rude to an Arab", "Medical Love Song", "Finland", "I'm so worried"...

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review by: date: 2008-03-15 rating:
Oh, if only...
I've always enjoyed this album and, at least, they were being honest about what it was.

Sadly, this latest issue is still missing the track we'd all like to hear in CD-quality, 'A Farewell To John Denver'. For legal resons this was dropped after the first run of vinyl-pressings and it seems *most* unlikely it will ever see the official light-of-day again. (Actually, let me face up to the fact: we shall *not* be hearing it again.)

If you enjoy Python for their songs, this is the album for you (after you've bought 'Monty Python Sings'), as it has many.

So, maybe not the album to buy if you're venturing into MP for the first time but certainly worthy of a place in your collection at some point. If you already have it on CD I'd maybe not buy this latest issue unless you're a completist, as the bonus tracks tend to be diluting rather than enhancing. On the other hand, if you haven't already got it on CD, then this version *is* the one to go for.

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review by: date: 2008-02-12 rating:
Obligatory Play on Album Title
`Monty Python's Contractual Obligation Album' is a perfect Python release from the self depreciation cover to the lack of sleeve `Can TG do a nice eye-catching cover to help it sell?', `Not really worth it'.

The content is however fantastic and unlike the previous albums it was recorded as new material as an album rather than putting their TV sketch material out on an album. As a result of this rather than limit themselves to writing sketches they have complimented them by writing a series of truly funny songs.

Often funny songs suffer from not being very good songs however allot of these actually stand up as being good songs to boot particularly Eric Idles contributions such as `Henry Kissinger', `I Like Chinese' and Michael Palin's `Decomposing Composers'.

Although it works better than most of the previous Python albums by being conceived as an album it possibly looses out to being filthier due to the material not having to be suitable for TV broadcast. That said anyone interested in Python is of course obliged to own this album.



review by: date: 2007-11-19 rating:
Bitty but funny
Late Python seems bitterer and harsher than early Python; compare the savagery of the Mr. Creosote sketch in 1984's 'Meaning of Life' with the benign idiocy of the 'Fish-Slapping Dance' from the early 70s. This album, dating from the late 70s, comes with the faint sound of barrel-scraping, what with Eric Idle recycling his 'Rock Notes' from Rutland Weekend Television and the fact that the sketches and musical numbers no longer flow seamlessly into and out of each other but are presented very much as discrete tracks. Some of it is toothless, like the smarmy 'Henry Kissinger', and some of it ('Do What John', 'Muddy Knees') just pointless, but when it's on it's still very good: Cleese's frothing-at-the-mouth advertising executive, determined to find a way to market Michael Palin's several thousand miles of string that's been cut up into 3-inch lengths; Palin's touching love song to 'Finland'; Terry Jones' wonderfully offensive 'Never Be Rude To An Arab' and his teeth-grindingly doleful 'I'm So Worried'; Graham Chapman's truly revolting 'Medical Love Song', which reduced my stern 80-year old grandfather to fits of laughter when he first heard it; and arguably the high point, Eric Idle's short and sharp exercise in the comic potential of a well-placed sound effect, 'I Bet You They Won't Play This Song On The Radio'.

Come to think of it, it's probably the only Python album where the songs are funnier than the sketches. Except, perhaps, for Michael Palin's nervous Bishop, repeatedly trying to do a voiceover for a pretentious lager ad that talks about the earth having been created over millions of years - '...Not quite the creation as we see it,' as he points out, to weary silence from the control room.

Python fans will want this, but those who want to find out what made Python great should start with the TV series, the movies, and then proceed to the three classic albums - 'Another', 'Matching Tie and Handkerchief' and 'Previous'.

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