First published on 30 Aug 2011. Updated on 22 Sep 2011.
You can’t possibly argue that the Muppets need a dose of cool from, as the cover sticker barefacedly lies, “today’s MOST sensational artists”, surely? The Muppets were and are freakin’ awesome (go watch the old series or the first three films again – they stand up), and in terms of rockin’ there’s not a single artist on here that could hold a candle to Dr Teeth & The Electric Mayhem. So: why even bother?
OK Go don’t answer that question with their deliberately deconstructed version of ‘The Muppet Show Theme’, which is unpleasant but interesting. Mind you, at least they appear to actually care about what they’re doing: it’s followed by Weezer maintaining their last decade of making exclusively disappointing music, this time by phoning in a limp cover of ‘The Rainbow Connection’ with the help of Paramore’s autotuned frontperson Hayley Williams, whose emotionless delivery helps drain the song of any of its remaining beauty.
Then we have the Fray – the Fray, people! – doing a thankfully anonymous version of the legendary ‘Mahna Mahna’ (fun fact: the song was originally from the soundtrack to the 70s nudie flick ‘Sweden: Heaven & Hell’ – oh, Jim Henson, you saucy devil!), before the Alkaline Trio do exactly the sort of ghastly pop-punk version of the Kermit and Fozzy duet ‘Movin’ Right Along’ that you’d expect.
And it goes on. Evanescence’s Amy Lee apparently figured that ‘Halfway Down the Stairs’ needed her overcooked operatic vocal over twitchy electronics, and was horribly, horribly mistaken. Nondescript country-rock dude Matt Nathanson does a predictably nondescript take on Rowlf’s mighty ‘I Hope That Something Better Comes Along’, and Rachael Yamagata does a cut-price St Vincent on a goddawful version of Gonzo’s ‘I’m Going to Go Back There Someday’.
It’s not all awful: My Morning Jacket do a nice enough version of the Emmet Otter’s Jug Band Christmas obscurity ‘Our World’, Norwegian singer-songwriter Sondre Lerche performs an infectiously cute ‘Mr Bassman’, and Andrew Bird does a beautiful, restrained ‘Bein’ Green’. ‘Night Life’, which was little more than incidental music in The Great Muppet Caper, is given the sort of rockin’ treatment that only some dudes from Good Charlotte and Atreyu can provide – and for the Australian version (and only for the Australian version) we get Missy Higgins doing a spirited voice’n’piano version of Randy Newman’s ‘Simon Smith and the Amazing Dancing Bear’, performed on the show by Scooter and Fozzy.
But even the good moments are hardly must-listens, and given that there’s a perfectly serviceable compilation available that has the Muppet versions of these songs, the only people who could possibly desire this are either Alkaline Trio completists, the morbidly curious, and idiots. Everyone else should save their Muppet-love for the forthcoming movie – and speaking of which, Jason Segel, we have some seriously high expectations…
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