Various Artists: "Aluminum Plums: A 10th Anniversary Tribute to Of Montreal"

It was pretty much destined for mediocrity to begin with. A post on June 18th, 2008 on the Of Montreal Fan Site, The Booty Patrol, invited any and everyone to cover an Of Montreal song to celebrate the band's 10th Anniversary. This isn't exactly stereogum's O.K. Computer tribute we're talking about here. No, what Aluminum Plums is is just a fun way for fans of the band to pay tribute to Of Montreal by trying their best to recreate songs from the band's expansive collection. The end result is expectedly amateur (with sparks of genius and talent here and there) and will probably only appeal to those who were involved in the process. Huge Of Montreal fans, like myself will most likely find very little to enjoy about Aluminum Plums.

I suppose that the largest problem with Aluminum Plums is the fact that it's not to be taken as a serious recreation or reimagination of Of Montreal's music, but just a casual love note to the band from their fans. Any expectations of greatness should be immediately thrown out of the window, because the album features only a few artists that I've actually heard of before and a large part of Aluminum Plums is performed by people who have no business making music. Jeff Maksym's abysmal cover of "Dustin Hoffman Offers Lame Explanation for Missing Bathtub" turns the already somewhat unimpressive song into an unimaginable mess of distorted guitars, vocals, and drums. I would be lying if I said that any moment of this song was worth listening to, and I can't even tell that I'm listening to an Of Montreal song, even when I have the title right in front of me. A Candlelight Vigil's version of "She's A Rejector" is a little better, as it actually sounds like...well...music, but the vocalist sounds like he's trying too hard to sound like Kevin Barnes. The music itself is a straight-up cover of the Hissing Fauna... song too, with barely anything to suggest that the band actually tried to put their own mark on the song aside from some frantic guitar soloing towards the end. It just ends up sounding like a bad Of Montreal cover, which it is.

But the badness doesn't really stop there. Aisle Six's cover of "Vegan in Furs" is "sung" by a person who really doesn't need to even own a microphone, much less sing into it. "Alvin and the Chipmunks" make an appearance on the song's coda, which is to say that his terrible vocals are pitch-shifted to sound like Alvin and the Chipmunks when in fact it's just a really awful vocalist trying to disguise the fact that he's terrible. Even Elekibass, who I adore, can't really pick things up, as their cover of "Springtime is the Season" is less than charming. I do, however, give them props for trying to put their own unique Elekibass-stylings on the simple, synth-driven sing-a-long.

Finally, we get a decent cover eight songs in with Sorry Stories' cover of "Autobiographical Grandpa," which is not only faithfully covered but well-recorded. The vocalist isn't the greatest, but he sings better than anyone else on the album thus far. And what the hell is up with Lesbian Afternoon's "Disconnect the Dots," which is in no way a cover of the opener to Satanic Panic in the Attic? I'm pretty sure renaming your original music to "Disconnect the Dots" and replacing your chorus with the song's lyrics doesn't count as a tribute, but as exploitation. Let's hope no one notices. The next song is Alex Madore's cover of one of my favorite Of Montreal songs, "Jennifer Louise." And while he may totally kill the energy and happiness of the original, his slow, mildly depressing version is still pretty decent. It's well sung and well performed, so even though he changed the feel of the song, you can't complain too much, especially when it's surrounded by such nonsense.

And this leads me to the most gut-wrenching cover of them all, Emily Pike's "City Bird." It's not that she can't sing, or that the music is bad. Neither of those statements are true. The problem with the song is that Emily takes Kevin's soft, reflective ballad and turns into a Kelly Clarkson power ballad without changing the backing music. So what we end up with is a copy of the original song, but instead of Kevin crooning softly, we get a wannabe American Idol belting out "City bird, haven't you heard? Hasn't anybody told you?" at the top of her lungs. Way to miss the point.

The Terrified Terrifics' "Du Og Meg" does a pretty decent job of capturing the charm of the original without resorting to a flat out copy of the song. I suppose the best way to describe it is "cute," which is something the original was far from. The next song, "Kevin, I Wish You Were Born In Brazil" is a hilarious reimagining of "Tim, I Wish You Were Born a Girl" with the singer wishing that he and Kevin could play Sega Genesis and other far-fetched, yet humorous activities. Indie Blockedappella do an amazing job of recreating "Will You Come and Fetch Me" in full-on a capella. If you needed a reason to download Aluminum Plums, this is probably the best reason to do so.

J&H's bedroom rendition of "Requiem for O.M.M. 2" is enjoyable in that it's just so lame that it's good. The only thing I can think of when listening to it is a bunch of kids gathered around an acoustic guitar and recording the whole thing in one take. It's not good, but it is amusing. Dena Zilber's cover of "Good Morning, Mr. Edmonton" goes for the same effect, but fails miserably. Skip it. In fact, just go ahead and skip the next 4 tracks too, right to Low Digital's cover of "Suffer for Fashion." It's far from the best track on the album, but considering the garbage that it follows, it stands out as something at leas halfway decent. There is good synth work here, which almost makes up for the horrible vocals that flood the song. "Suffer for Fashion" is such a vocally-driven song, but the band seemed to forget that when recording this version. Prash's "Chrissy Kiss the Corpse" is another one of those "so bad it's amusing" songs, sounding a lot like Atom and his Package, but without talent.

And finally, at song 25, Aluminum Plums comes to a close with Casper & The Cookies' version of "Penelope," which is undoubtedly the best cover on the album, and one of just a few that deserve to exist. Of course, this isn't such a surprise, as Casper & The Cookies are actually an established band. They do an amazing job with this song, utilizing every trick at their disposal to make the song sound great! The traverse a bunch of music genres in the process, including electro funk, marching band arrangements, a capella, punk, and even a crazy, but awesome bluegrass hoe-down. Musically, it's a much better song than the original, though I still have a soft spot for Of Montreal's version.

Aluminum Plums is free, so you should download it if you're a fan of Of Montreal. Just be prepared to delete 20 of the 25 songs found on this collection. The biggest problem with Aluminum Plums is the lack of decent quality control. If these are the ones that made it, I can't even imagine what the rejects sounded like (assuming there were any). But then again, the point of the album is not to wow us (and I'm sure it was never meant for a serious review), but to be a fun project for fans. I sure hope they had a better time making it than I had listening to it, because Aluminum Plums is about as enjoyable as eating an aluminum plum would be. See what I did there? Oh, I'm such a clever guy!

Key Tracks:
1. Sorry Stories - "Autobiographical Grandpa"
2. Alex Madore - "Jennifer Louise"
3. Terrified Terrifics - "Du Og Meg"
4. Indie Blockedapella - "Will You Come and Fetch Me"
5. Casper & the Cookies - "Penelope"

4 out of 10 Stars

Download Aluminum Plums Here
Download my cover of "Tim, I Wish You Were Born a Girl" Here