Spinal Tap - Break Like the Wind

A cataclysmic of the Mind

The greatest band of all time products the greatest album of all time!
Break like the wind is a transgenic odyssey of musical integrity.

A music have for any true fan of music October 10, 2007

Better than most "real" heavy metal

It's hard to believe that these guys are not professional musicians and that they don't make a living from music. For a "parody" or "spoof" album, this is great music in it's own right. I listen to it first because it's funny, but I listen to it again because it's great stuff. The haunting title track is awesome, and tracks like "Rainy Day Sun" sounds like it was written by the Beatles. Like the first album the rhyming lyrics are purposefully contrived and are a chuckle at first listen, especially in "The Majesty of Rock" ("together and ever"). And the band's breadth of styles highlights the versatility of this extremely talented group of "musicians." May 29, 2007

Break like the WIND!

Spinal Tap returns! The most prolific nonexistant band ever is back with "Break Like The Wind," a wonderfully warped metal album that celebrates rock'n'roll, bad lyrics and exploding drummers. This a bad album -- gloriously, magnificently bad, in the way only a spoof can be.

It opens with the roaring male dominance rocker "Bitch School," which would be offensive if it weren't tongue-in-cheek, then lurches on to the wonderfully bloated "Majesty of Rock," a gloriously ghastly duet with Cher, the insanely pretentious "The Sun Never Sweats" ("Bolder than the pirates who used to rule the sea/Braver than the natives, who never heard of tea...")

The peak of this album may be the song "Break Like the Wind," which aspires to be deep and inspirational despite lyrics like "We are the thumb on a stranger's hand." And two of the most priceless songs are at the end: the mope ballad "All the Way Home," and the truly twisted Christmas song, "Christmas With the Devil."

The world was first introduced to Spinal Tap in "This is Spinal Tap," the classic rockumentary about England's loudest band. With the help of Cher (yes, that Cher) and Dweezil Zappa, they take it upon themselves to roundly mock metal, hard rock, rock ballads, and quite a few other things as well -- they're funny because they put so much effort into doing a nudge-wink bad job.

The music itself is pretty standard hard rock riffs -- it's merely okay, and therein lies the irony. What's really startling is that while the music is not amazing in the technical sense, it's actually much better than many real-life bands were. Scary, no? It does have its moments of brilliance, due to Zappa and Jeff Beck mostly, as well as some gloriously ghastly sitar.

It's not the music but the lyrics that are genius. Michael McKean, Christopher Guest, and Harry Shearer are true geniuses of the bad song -- what's even better, these are the sort of bad songs that people write, but don't know that they are bad. "And that's the Majesty of Rock!/The Mystery of Roll!/The darning of the sock,/the scoring of the goal!" Does it get worse than that? Yes, if you include lines like "Rise! for you are cream" and "We may be gods or big marionettes/But the sun never sweats."

This particular edition includes some extra goodies -- the rambly little song "All The Way Home," which was a pre-band song that the guys sort-of-sing in the movie. And then there's the "Bitch School" video -- an all-girls school, where a leather-clad Monroe-lookalike turns up to be the new teacher, and teaches the girls to get in touch with their inner S&M madam.

"Break Like the Wind" is a wonderful album by the loudest band in Britain, and the best band that never technically existed. Tap into this! April 2, 2007

Almost better than the first!

I have to say reading reviews that if people aren't laughing out loud at the music on this album you're missing the point. I agree that the lyrics are what give Spinal Tap their edge but if you're a musician listen to their dead on take of all forms of rock. The Sun Never Sweats is a highlight for me particularly the middle section that switches into three unrelated keys while the riff badly apes Slade or Jethro Tull. Rainy Day Sun does a great job of evoking bad '60's psychedlic rock - a cross between the Doors and the Kinks. The best part of the album though is Nigel's voicebox solo on Springtime. The only bad parts for me were the duet with Cher (too blatantly bad for me) and the remake of Christmas with the Devil which is done better on the remastered soundtrack (Take number one with their Hoiday greeting kicks every other version). April 24, 2006

Sh*t Sandwich

Nah, not really. I just wanted to use that line from the movie.

Good cd...definitely worth getting if you liked the original Tap music. June 21, 2005

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