Pitchfork

The Commercial Album is a more of an excuse than satire. Its premise: commercial jingles are the soundtrack to modern life. Such memes of social control are never more than a minute long. Therefore, The Residents concocted 40 one-minute ditties-- technically "commercial[s]." Never mind that the iconic, San Francisco freak-show rockers sell nothing and rarely implant Pavlovian bells in consumer minds. But then again, their giant eyeball masks, top hats, and tuxes could never explain their career-mothering notion of "phonetic organization." That's Amerikun Dadaism for ya.

Mute recently reissued this train that, when it was first released in 1980, barely skidded off the track. Also included is a booklet of lyrics and rather awkward-looking CG art from its admirable DVD edition's 56 music videos from various prey of The Residents' spell. Special note: the Residents directed what are supposedly the earliest music videos, for Commercial. Some of them are on permanent display at New York's Museum of Modern Art.

If anything, The Residents usually create the perfect soundtrack for fever dreams. During that condition, to stare at a pile of dirty clothes or one's moonlit shadow is to trigger delusions about living among beasts. The Residents' grotesqueries follow the same logic-- although their creations are oddly adorable like the creatures that inhabit Edward Gorey's "Utter Zoo Alphabet".

To sit through Commercial's 40 synthesizer'n'piecemeal percussion tunes of carnival barker serenades, bedeviled Zappa jaunts, Babylonian cabaret, and bastardized Chinese operas may disturb the stomach. It is arguably the Residents' last great album before descending into 15 years of desperate weird for weirdness' sake pretension. As mentioned before, nothing here remotely resembles a "commercial" for anything-- their last product placement was for Coca-Cola in their 1979 ethnodelic masterpiece Eskimo, where their Westernized Aleutian characters bleated "Coca Cola adds life!"

Given Commercial's volume, it's inevitably hit-or-miss-- although these poor sods should be immunized from falling in love. Witness their lopsided tap-dance number, "Love Is..." where they robotically chant, "Love is only loneliness divided by another love is only living for the lonely love is only loneliness divided by another and I know that life is lonely." Whomever in the anonymous band sings is either a nasally congested, good 'ol boy or a female music teacher for second-graders. They best gel in the Hee Haw Chinese opera of "Amber". Other highlights include the psychotramatic lullaby of "The Talk of Creatures", the literally glass-shattering gutbucket blues of "The Coming of the Crow", and the Martian Beatles doo-wop of "The Simple Song".

The rest of Commercial recycles the formula of demented, calliope-style melodies on whiny synthesizers and vocal histrionics that would've intoxicated Harry Smith had The Residents blew jugs and plucked banjos in northern Louisiana in 1952. To avoid indigestion, do not eat the whole thing.