Hulk RULES!

"Oh my God." That's what you said when this came up in your browser, right? Your reaction is appropriate, perhaps even understated. If my officemate didn't hate me for working on this blog in the office before, I'm fairly certain he does now.

It appears that the goal of this album was to take all of the forms of music popular in the late-80's and early-90's and ruin them. On this album, the Hulkster raps, he rocks, there's even a song that sounds vaguely like a cross between Heart and Culture Club. It's difficult to write about this album without just quoting a bunch of lyrics. The lyrics really do speak for themselves as I imagine that most readers of this blog are more than capable of imagining the type of hokey 80's-esque background music and third-rate vocals that go with the words.

The first song informs us with a rockin' beat that Hulkster's In the House. This has quite possibly the most inane lyrics I've ever heard. The writers of this song should be informed that "room" doesn't rhyme with "move". Really the song speaks for itself. Add some generic guitar riffs and you've got the idea.

I can feel it in my feet
We're moving to the beat
Hey ho hey ho, come on let's go
When the going gets tough, the tough get rough
Hey ho hey go, come on let's go
We're rockin down the house
The band is playing loud
We're blowing of the roof
We're gonna rock and roll

The second track, He's American Made, seems appropriate to the mood of the country today. That is to say, mindless jingoism. While there are things that make me proud of my country, Hulk Hogan is not among them. Despite the fact that "he's got the stars and stripes running though his veins" and "he wears the heart of his country on his sleeve". The best line, of course is, "He'll fight for your freedom if you really believe". If only Rowdy Roddy Piper were the greatest threat to our freedom, we'd be all set. Unfortunatly, I don't see the Hulkster taking on Al Qaeda anytime soon, although he did defeat the Iron Sheik, so who knows?

Yes....he raps, complete with flygirl background vocals and the valley girl intro (a la Baby Got Back). Hulkster's Back is really the only example we need as to why pro wrestlers shouldn't be given a microphone. The problem, of course, is that Hulk Hogan is white....very white. Thus he has the rhythm and rhyming capability of his ancestors...that is to say, none. "Oooh. Look at that vein in my tricep" he raps as the background vocals sing "Check out the pythons baby, the Hulksters back."

I have no idea why Wrestling Boot Traveling Band exists. A song about the travels of a band that existed for one (very bad) album and, to my knowledge, never toured, seems pointless.

While the pro-family, anti-drug message of I Wanna be a Hulkamaniac is inspiring, I'm not sure being a Hulkamaniac is what we should be encouraging our children to aspire to. Remember, always swim with a buddy, work real hard and always study.

By far the most disturbing, perhaps to the point of being offensive, song is Hulkster in Heaven. This piece is about a dead child. Yes, a dead child. The story goes that a young Hulk fan was invited to sit in the front row at a match (match? ok. performance) in the U.K. During the show the seat was empty, apparently the young fan had passed on. Here we hear the Hulk mourning that young fan. The line that really sums up this song for me is "When the Hulkster gets to heaven, we'll tag up again. The world just lost another Hulkamaniac". Perhaps here in my academic, culturally isolated (one might say, bourgeois) life, I'm too far detached from the common man to understand how or why anyone would find this song appropriate. But it does fill the "sappy ballad" slot on our list of late-80's musical forms to ruin.

I would like to take this opportunity to respond to part of an Amazon.com user review I read of this album. The user writes "Looking at the cd booklet and listening to the songs, you can tell Hulk and Jimmy had a lot of fun recording this cd and put their hearts into it, for better or worse. That does count for something. " I must disagree. As I told some undergrads in an Introduction to Programming class I was a TA for a few years ago, it doesn't matter how long it took you to come up with your answer, or how hard you worked, it's still wrong, and you still fail.

I rank this album as "worse than Fabio", since at least Fabio didn't try to sing.

I haven't decided what I'll write about next week. Leave comments with suggestions.