Have you ever had a day when everything just seemed to pile up on your back? When life handed you a big basketful of lemons, and there was no sugar and water to be found? When, after you’ve eaten your mediocre lunch and been through the first half of your mediocre day you’ve wanted nothing more than to wrestle up all of your problems, throw down your lunch, get up on the table and sing?! When you’re a giant anthropomorphic turtle with a mask who’s troubles seemed so overwhelming that you decided to take a break from fighting crime-loving ninjas, throw down your weapons, and pick up a guitar and express your true feelings? If you’ve ever felt like any of the above statements before, then this album is for you!
Something Terrible, Vol. 2: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in “Coming Out of Their Shells!”
This month’s selection comes from our wonderful Nate Gass. When he first told me about it, I wasn’t really sure what to expect, but I use no hyperbole when I say there’s nothing that could have quite prepared me for what I was in for when I pushed the “play” button in my iTunes playlist. I was expecting something terrible, and what I got was…well, we’ll get to that. For now, some history.
In 1990, fictional characters the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were climbing quickly to the height of their first wave of immense popularity. Their animated series had already been running for three years, various playsets and action figures were selling like hotcakes, and children the world over were already beating the ever-loving spit out of each other and justifying their actions by referring to themselves by the names of classic Italian Renaissance artists. In short, Michaelangelo, Donatello, Leonardo, and Raphael were taking over. And, coincidentally, so were those who owned the rights to said fictional characters. As one would imagine, they had already earned literal gobs of cash through the aforementioned merchandizing and various other ventures. But in 1990, it was finally time to really rake in the cash with something bigger – something better. That’s right, you guessed it: an Off-Broadway Concert Tour.
Coming Out of Their Shells premiered at none other than Radio City Music Hall, featuring all four turtles as a bona-fide rock’n'roll band complete with saxophone (as “played” by Raphael), alongside other characters from their universe including April, Shredder, and Master Splinter. Pizza-Hut sponsored the whole shindig, including a release of a “Behind the Shells” VHS tape, as well as other premiums involved with their business including posters, audio-cassettes (such as the one belonging to Nate Gass, used for this very article), and official “Tour Guidebooks”. As far as a plot synopsis, there really isn’t one. Suffice it to say that April is, as usual if you’re familiar with the franchise, kidnapped by Shredder, who instead of focusing on his usual dastardly deeds has instead decided to “destroy all music.” Oh yeah, and he raps.
Which brings us to the actual music of Coming Out of Their Shells. According to Wikipedia, the musical genre of the show “was closest to hair metal/power rock.” According to this reviewer, it was closest to “confusing”. From the beginning track, which shares its title with the name of the production, we are treated to one of the turtles singing about the boys coming out of their shells with a voice that sounds like Bon Jovi guesting on a Journey record while an acoustic guitar plays in the background.
“because when there’s music inside inside of you, you know that one day it’s got to come through. That’s why we’re here, and we’re telling you true, we’re coming out of our shells…”
And, lyrically at least, that’s really the general idea of the whole thing. I have to be honest, when I heard the first track I was somewhat impressed. It wasn’t half as bad as I expected it to be – initially, that is. But that was only the beginning.
The rest of the album hops between some grey-puce area between world-music, hair metal, the worst old-school hip hop you’ve ever heard, new-age, and, well…Pizza Hut advertising. It’s overarching theme is that when you’ve got troubles – like, say, some sort of ancient, half-mechanized, evil samurai and his entire posse of anonymous death-ninjas kidnapping your beautiful news-anchor friend just before the start of your concert – all you’ve got to do is sing about it and your troubles will melt away. Oh – and if that doesn’t work you can always eat a metric ton of pizza (and sing about that, too). “Sing About It” is actually the name of track 2 on the cassette, and the climax of the track where Leonardo hits his high note made me laugh out loud in the middle of a coffee shop full of people. The album is full of amusements like these.
Track 3 (entitled “Tubin’”) gives us a sega-genesis sounding midi beat and is all about playing in sewers. According to Michaelangelo, “you might be diggin’ California days, but tubin’s got no ultraviolet rays!” There is a distinct M.C. Hammer meets The Beach Boys feel, and the rap near the end of the song is nothing short of priceless, as are most of the hip-hop breakdowns and intros on the album.
The next track, Splinter’s solo, is called “Skipping Stones” and provides us with an alternate method of dealing with our troubles (see the title of the song). Splinter sings lyrics resembling something written by Kate Bush in her third-grade poetry class. Splinter himself sounds something like a 90-year-old Meatloaf impersonator with a fake asian accent. Once again, as the track comes to a climax things only get worse, as the lyrical stylings shift somewhere closer to a duet between Tom Waits and a food processor, and the music gets less world-y and more…well, bad.
Elsewhere on the album we find such lyrical gems as “Pizza power! A flying-saucer food-delight!”, lists of various foods that the turtles don’t like as much as pizza, “I can’t hear you, nunda!” (the meaning of the word “nunda” is still a complete mystery to me), “Walk straight! No need to mutate!”, “Walk, talk, be, see, hear, think straight!”, “No treaties after the war!” (which comes WAY out of left field), and “A turtle is a friend – a friend ’till the end”.
I have to admit, even though it was ultimately worth it, I had to tackle the album in segments. On track 8, entitled “Cowabunga”, I had to remove my headphones and pause the track because I was laughing so hard. But in the middle of the next song, I had to remove my headphones for a completely different reason – the Turtles had ground me down, and I was getting legitimately weary. My eyelids were heavy. I was developing a headache. Every so often I would catch myself neglecting my note-taking for the review, instead letting my eyes wander around the coffee shop I was sitting in. I then realized that I had actually been tuning the music out, and had to re-start the track, near tears.
And when I finally reached the end of the album, mentally and emotionally exhausted, I removed my headphones and uttered a breathless “wow.” Without trying to sound mean-spirited, this may have been the most difficult album to listen to I have ever experienced (when listening to it all the way through, at least). The experience was something akin to watching a guy who claims to bend spoons with his mind but can’t actually do it try to bend spoons for an hour and a half straight – was, in a word, painful. A week after writing the review the thing was still on my iPod, and songs from it would keep coming up on shuffle in my car, causing my passengers to protest loudly and fervently. It is, truly and beautifully, an absolutely awful piece of work, and even though it may have brought joy to thousands of children when it was on the road I completely understand why it has since been forgotten. Still, as bad as it was, I’ve found that it has had several side-effects that could be interpreted as being positive, which are as follows:
- I will never again complain about anything played on the radio as being “The worst thing I’ve ever heard,” because this album’s track “Cowabunga” has taken that title.
- I have vowed to be open-minded about such musical acts as Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber.
- I now have the knowledge that if I’m ever in trouble, if I skip some stones the turtles will arrive, friends to the end, and I can be assured that we’ll grab a slice of pizza, crank up the jams, crawl into the nearest sewer, and sing about it! The music is within!
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go cleanse my palette with some Pizza-Hut and Phil Collins. See you next month.
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Colin Flanigan is a writer, musician, and artist. He currently studies English and Media studies in the Chicagoland area, heads up the band The Aches and Pains, and blogs at The Syllabus.
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