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The Rutles - Archaeology

Track listing:
  1. Major Happy's Up and Coming Once Upon A Good Time Band 2:19
  2. Rendezvous 2:06
  3. Questionnaire 2:45
  4. We've Arrived (And To Prove It We're Here) 2:09
  5. Lonely-Phobia 2:35
  6. Unfinished Words 2:08
  7. Hey Mister! 3:18
  8. Easy Listening 2:09
  9. Now She's Left You 2:03
  10. The Knicker Elastic Song 2:39
  11. I Love You 2:18
  12. Eine Kleine Middle Klasse Musik 4:24
  13. Joe Public 4:03
  14. Shangri-La 7:43
  15. Don't Know Why 3:44
  16. Back in '64 3:14

Notes


Since the Rutles never properly existed in the first place, they were free of the high expectations surrounding the "reunions" of groups with a higher profile (such as the prime targets of their satire, the Beatles). Although it was recorded over 20 years after the first Rutles album, this is an unexpectedly delightful continuation of that debut. Songwriter Neil Innes continues to masterfully lampoon the Beatles myth on this collection, billed as an archival release of unreleased material (in the mold of the Beatles' own Anthology series). The sound is extremely similar to the Rutles' earlier material, although most of the cuts here are spoofing the Beatles' work from Sgt. Pepper onwards, rather than striving for an equal balance between all Fab Four phases. Innes is a genius at weaving in musical and lyrical quotes/references from numerous Beatle tunes, with a subtle hilarity that takes several plays to fully unfold.