Shat - "The Best of Shat: The Cunt Chronicles"

There are bands that make funny music, and there are bands that try to but fail. Shat fails. Musically, Shat is a competent punk band, similar at times to System of a Down, early Black Flag, or Germs, to name a few. However, Shat's secret weapon is singer Jeff Wood. He is one of the most single-minded lyricists in recent memory, focusing his muse on bodily functions, sex, pornography, and sexually transmitted diseases. As a result, Shat is offensive in every possible way, from the album artwork (showing Wood with an assortment of blow-up dolls in various positions) to the song titles and lyrics. Over the course of its 65 tracks and 70 minutes, the album's relentless misogyny and fourth-grade locker room humor wear thin. Heard in small doses, Shat is mildly amusing. But the experience of actually listening to the album in its entirety is an endurance exercise. The joke gets stale, the repetitive lyrics begin to grate (most tracks are only the title of the song repeated ad nauseum, one in Spanish), and the guilty pleasure wears off, leaving only the guilt that time spent listening to this album could have been better spent doing almost anything else. Reading the track listing, it is hard to believe that someone would take the time to produce something this infantile, and then put their face on it and sell it. But at the same time, for those who bathroom humor appeals to, track titles like "Grandpa s Playing With His Penis", "The Whoremons", "Look At Those Breasts" or "Sex With Your Pets" amuse to no end. A great album if you're a twelve year-old boy who looks up dirty words in the dictionary, but not for anyone else. Interestingly, this may be one of the few albums that get held in higher esteem without hearing it.

1 star