The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Come Out of Their Shells (And Their Minds)

One day in the sewers of New York, a huge merchandising empire was losing money at an unsettling rate. After a series of staged publicity stunts involving the turtles defeating "The Shredder" (who was really just someone dressed up in a costume from Wal-Mart), finding ways to milk these mutated hell-spawns to children became increasingly difficult.

They even tried making turtle caskets, but KISS already beat them to it.

But tonight would be different. When Splinter, the turtles' strangely named rat mentor, walked out of a bar after several hours of continuous drinking, he decided that it would be a good idea for his sons to form a rock band. Luckily for Splinter, the nearest music store was only a few blocks away. Before he entered, he devised a rough plan for which instruments would be the most appropriate for the "awesome foursome."

First, he considered everyone's personalities. Raphael was a stupid jerk, Michelangelo was an even stupider jerk, Leonardo was an honorable jerk and Donatello was actually a pretty nice guy. Because of Donatello's deformity, he was forced to play keyboards and ordered to stay 50 feet away from girls at all times.

In comparison, his brothers were able to perform with more reasonable instruments such as electric and bass guitars. Raphael handled most of the vocals and even learned how to play the freaking saxophone.

"Even novices know that a saxophonist is way more important than a drummer!"

When Splinter finally came home after a long and excruciating day, he lit a candle and found that the turtles were still awake and wrestling each other for no apparent reason (Except for Donatello, who was cowering in the corner while simultaneously trying to sleep.)

After several minutes of having to chase the remaining turtles through the sewers, Splinter managed to make them sit down by using methods of brute force. He then explained to the turtles that ever since the defeat of the Shredder, they had "honed their ninja skills to near perfection." Of course, Splinter knew that in reality the turtles could be brutally beaten by a four-year-old, but he had to keep everyone feeling good about themselves.

With that out of the way, Splinter gave a brief but encouraging speech:

"It's time you learned the balance and harmony found in music! These are the instruments through which you will learn to create... and in creating you shall grow... and bring joy to others!"

The turtles reacted with insane enthusiasm, and after years of learning how to properly hold their instruments, Splinter decided that they were finally ready to play stadiums.

"Dancing while playing an instrument on top of a huge speaker? Where's the danger in that?"

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles immediately managed to get gigs at small clubs, and promotional posters began to spread all over town.

50 people came for the music, but 50,000 came for the toothbrush.

Predictably, these early gigs ended up being complete disasters. Afterbirth would always start the show with fiery and explosive performances, but it wasn't that simple for the headliners, who forgot that they had to write original material or even learn covers. As a result, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles would come to the stage, hit random chords without tuning their instruments and attempt to satisfy the audience by trying to play songs from their favorite album of all time: The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshopper's Feast.

"Love is all, yes, love is all at the Butterfly Ball!"

The only reason the turtles made it through those nights alive (besides the free toothbrush) is because Splinter had a certain trick up his sleeve...

Basically, he paid people millions of dollars to "cheer" for them.

Even though these first shows left something to be desired, MCA Records saw that there was a huge demographic for the artistic visions of four "ninja" reptiles who did nothing but eat pizza and make corny jokes.

In early 1990, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were officially signed to the label. Shorty afterwards, they were crammed into a studio and forced to write and record an entire album's worth of material with a session drummer so they could go on their first international tour. This stressful situation was made even worse when it turned out that Afterbirth had broken up and the turtles were no longer allowed to give out free toothbrushes.

The result of these sessions was Coming Out of Their Shells, a ten-song opus that was only released on a Pizza Hut sponsored tape. Its sound has been described as "psuedo-glam metal", which is really just another way of saying "false false metal."

But once you consider the double negative...

The opener, "Coming Out of Our Shells", is a two-and-a-half minute long acoustic bore-fest that never builds up to any reasonable climax. The lyrics (based on the two lines this band wrote for it) are about how exciting it is to be musicians, which in turn makes them "come out of their shells." Great metaphor, guys.

"Sing About It" begins with some completely unnecessary choir backing vocals accompanied by a kick drum and needless orchestration. This continues throughout the whole song, but it does build up to something, even if nothing new happens after the first half (not even a solo!) and it's filled with useless overproduction. The lyrics continue the streak of stupidity introduced in the previous track, with gems such as "Maybe it's awesome and you know you're on top / Feel like out of your shell you're going to pop."

I'm starting to consider the possibility that Ralph Wiggum wrote every song on this tape.

"Tubin'" is supposed to be about surfing. That's all we'll ever know.

"Skipping Stones" is a ballad featuring vocals performed by Splinter himself. His singing sounds extremely strained and the music is somewhat generic, but it gets the job done. Surprisingly, the lyrics are actually pretty good, especially for an album of this caliber. Would you ever expect lines such as "The search for happiness / reaching for peace of mind" and "Water surrounds you / But the time for rings has past" to turn up on a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles record? I still wonder what the point of having Splinter appear on this number was, though:

"Well, it's either this or pretending to meditate again."

The album returns to dimwitted stupidity with "Pizza Power", which is one of the worst song titles I've ever heard in my life. Musically, it's a slight improvement over the first three tracks, but the drum beats sometimes sound similar to those in "Sing About It" and the words are pretty much what you would expect at this point.

"Eat enough of this processed crap, and even you can grow up to be a teenage mutant ninja turtle!"

Just when you think that things couldn't get any worse, the hip-hop influenced "Walk Straight" comes in to completely destroy any hope that this album might turn out decently. There's even a pointless sing-along section in the middle which never develops past "[insert verb here!] [insert verb here] straight!"

The following track, "No Treaties", tries to be an anthemic rock song, but fails due to mediocre songwriting and a completely unenergetic performance. It's about standing up to a certain Wal-Mart super-villain...

"Cowabunga" (another hip-hop song) is unique for one reason: it is officially the worst song that will ever be featured on this site. Nothing else here even comes close to the careless, shallow lyrics (which were probably improvised on the spot, complete with random pauses for no reason at all) and the horrible, extremely repetitive "music."

"Congratulations! You didn't even have to be a heavy metal band!"

Fun Fact: Based on this track, Splinter wrote all the band's music and Raphael added the lyrics. So much for "turtle power", huh?

The next song is a ballad sung by April O'Neil (a newscaster and a friend of the turtles), creatively titled "April Ballad." Now, how come the turtles always let other people handle these types of songs, and of these people, why did they have to be their dad and some random reporter?

Their long lost second album prominently featured excerpts from Jesus Christ Superstar as interpreted by their lawyers.

On the surface, this is a completely ordinary ballad as sung by a typical third-rate Pat Benatar clone. However, the music is legitimately emotional and the vocal performance here is excellent, which is especially impressive considering that O'Neil managed to make lines such as "A turtle's a friend / a friend to the end" sound genuinely sentimental.

This leads us to the grand finale, "Count on Us." Like "No Treaties", the song tries to be anthemic, but this time, the band actually succeeds in making inspiring music in the uplifting, unashamedly cheesy style that only the 80s could provide. Beginning with a triumphant acoustic guitar riff, the track instantly erupts into AOR heaven. A chorus consisting of "We're the turtles / You can count on us!" actually works in this one and only reptilian masterpiece.

After the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles released their first (and only) album, the following tour ended up being mildly successful, even though the band had only 2.5 good songs and the performances were obviously lip-synched.

Due to a combination of bad management and complete laziness on the turtles' part, the group was unable to perform again until two years later, when they started the horribly titled Gettin' Down in Your Town tour. Unfortunately for them, no semi-respectable venue in the United States would even think about booking gigs for what was now a slowly dying fad. Besides, all of the band's former fans had either grown out of them or were more interested in seeing Afterbirth's long-awaited reunion concerts.

So, to make a long story short, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles performed at a few amusement parks and ultimately decided to call it a day after the sad but inevitable death of Splinter, who ended up jumping off a bridge after realizing that America wasn't God's country anymore.

Over the next few years, fate was not kind to what still remained of the band. Michelangelo died of a fatal pizza overdose, Leonardo went into debt in order to "help the economy" and Raphael's body magically shut down because he was bored.

Donatello, however, is still alive. You can find him dressed up in a Santa hat and carrying a drum every Christmas, singing carols to anyone who will listen (or pay him.)

"Thanks, Obama."

Centaurus

Centaurus were a heavy metal band that released an album in 1978, a time when metal was still evolving into its current form. While this may sound impressive, there were several releases in this year that made Centaurus sound laughable in comparison. These included Rainbow's Long Live Rock 'n' Roll, Judas Priest's Stained Class and Killing Machine, Budgie's Impeckable, Heavy Load's Full Speed at High Level, Black Sabbath's Never Say Die, etc.

There isn't much information about this band, but from what I know the band hailed from Los Angeles and were signed to Azra Records, a low-budget label which later signed notable groups such as Jag Panzer and Overkill. Their production values made the record sound like it came out 10 years before it was actually recorded. This would be all right if the music was any good...

After several seconds of guitar feedback, the record begins with the Deep Purple influenced "In the Mood", where the production is instantly noticeable. While it's not nearly as bad as Afterbirth's or even Exmortes' production, it still sounds awkward and the instruments sound like they're playing different songs at the same time as each other.

The band's singer is pretty decent, sounding like a young Ian Gillan (again with the Deep Purple references...) In the chorus of the song he goes all out, screaming,
"BABY YOU CAN STAY INSIDE I'M IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE...
TOONNNIIIIGGGGGHHHHHHTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!" (what?)

Unfortunately he never reaches that level of intensity ever again.

Besides the first track, "If I Build My World for You" is reminiscent of Uriah Heep (a poor man's version, obviously.)

1/3 of the material on this album is ambient, "psychedelic" noise with odd titles such as "To the Wireless". It is like Godzilla, but with even less of an atmosphere, if you can imagine that...

Listen to the album at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXtYtUNN2aM

Leviticus - I Shall Conquer

Usually, when I write articles for this site I discuss how bad a certain band is musically. But the band mentioned in this article is not one of the worst metal bands ever due to being bizarre or untalented. No, this band is in the Hall of Shame due to their packaging (as well as some of their lyrical content, but we'll get to that later.) Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome, LEVITICUS.

With my sexy muscles and mustache, I SHALL CONQUER THIS LAND!

Named after the last chapter of the Old Testament, Leviticus were a Christian metal band with similar lyrical ideas as Torn Flesh. I found this at a vinyl convention while browsing for some underground metal records. Once I encountered this record, I had stared in awe at the cover art. The thing was $12, meaning I had to spend over a third of my budget on this one album if I was going to buy it. Before making my purchase, I quickly scanned the back cover. There's no scan available on the internet, but it contains a picture of two band members performing. They're dressed in generic glam fashion, shirtless and with headbands and 80's pants. Their fashion sense, while not the best, still beats the infamous Stryper (who also happen to be yet another Christian band.)

The Lord is not pleased.

On the bottom of the back cover there is a review of the album by the manager of their record label which promises that the band's lyrics "cut like a two-edged sword" and "make their stance quite clear." If someone has to write a paragraph telling you that this record is supposed to be good, the contents inside must be really bad, I thought.

I had no idea what the record would sound like. The cover suggested overly macho, self induglent power metal (but for the Lord, of course) while their fashion suggested glam metal in the vein of those psycho, freaky human bees called Stryper...

On my way home from the convention, I opened up the sleeve. It contained all of the album's lyrics, featuring such gems as:

"I walk along, Yes, I walk on the road
Together with Jesus, together with Jesus"

"And your name, yeah, crushes every lie
And I will praise and adore your Holy name"

"When the Lord goes before His People
And fight against the dark, the earth and heaven shake
With the power of his might"

And best of all:

"I fear no evil, cause You are with me
Your rod and staff they comfort me"

When I actually put on the record I was disappointed. I thought this was going to be one of the worst records ever, but it ended up being a mediocre traditional metal record with Christian themes and lyrics. The singer's vocals were strained and mediocre, as well.

If you are still interested, you can listen to the album in its entirety at:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2B06A60ABC44C600&feature=mh_lolz

Torn Flesh

Torn Flesh were an American "Christian thrash metal" band. They are infamous for their unintelligible lyrics and generic music. Their first release, 1988's Love Kills featured timeless songs such as "No Surfin' in Hell", "Sowing Machine", "GODog" and "Where Worms Never Die". In the same year this demo was abridged into four songs and an interview at the end and released as the Thrashin' EP.

In 1989 Torn Flesh made their second and final album, Crux of the Mosh. The material is just as bad as the first album despite improved production values.

The album begins with two fairly straightforward songs, the title track and "End the Fight". Right away the vocalist sounds even more Cookie Monster like than even the most stereotypical death metal vocalist. He even uses these random and totally unnessecary low pitched, "demonic" vocal effects whenever he feels like it. If your band is trying to save souls for Jesus then try to make your lyrics at least somewhat comprehensible!

Track 3, "World Pollution" is a mid tempo song with an overly long intro consisting of a lame three note bass riff being played over a recording of a news report. After this intro is finally over, the song contains some of my "favorite" lyrics on the album:

"We say we're God's children
But we need our diapers changed
Cheap perfume and incense
To cover up the pains."

"Dead to the World" is a rerecording of a song from Love Kills. From here the album starts losing steam but there are still "highlights" such as a minute long metal version of "Happy Birthday".

Such a decision was pointless and even another rerecording of a song from Love Kills would be preferable. More "highlights" include an unintentionally hilarious song about gay rights and the last two tracks, "Hollywood Heaven" (another rerecording) and "The Ultimate Finale" (it's not.) And of course there is also this article's "overuse of quotation marks."

Listen to Crux of the Mosh on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9i37tsjKiqs&playnext=1&list=PL52B99D83CF0B8813

Metal Bands I Wanted to Write About (But Couldn't)

Apocalypse: American one man band from Manchester, New Hampsire. Apocalypse played ambient black metal. I didn't write an article about this band because it would be a rehash of the Exmortes article.

Enmity: American band from Tucson, Arizona. They play brutal death metal. I didn't write an article about this band because their material is unlistenable.

Extreme Napalm Terror: German band from Frankfurt am Main, Hesse. They played grindcore on their first album and death metal on their second album. I didn't write an article about this band because their material is unlistenable, and also because their material was released on Metal Enterprises, a label I've already written two articles about.

Kuster: Belgian band. They played traditional metal. This band is notable for having one of the worst vocalists in all of metal. I didn't write an article about this band because I couldn't find any of their EPs.

Wheelz of Steel: American two man band from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. They played traditional metal. The band was not named after the classic Saxon album, but the fact that the people in this band were seriously messed up people in wheelchairs. Didn't write an article about this band for the same reasons as Kuster.

Godzilla

Godzilla were another studio band from Metal Enterprises. Their first album, Godzilla was released in 1989 with the exact same lineup as Break Point. The cover of this debut album is infamous for not only being a horrible looking design, but it also shows a picture of THE PREDATOR when the album cover cleary says GODZILLA! It makes me wonder if there was some band called Predator who released an album with Godzilla on the cover... The music itself is pretty standard AC/DC esque "party rock." This album is filled with short, mediocre songs with titles such as "Don't Stop the Boogie" and "I Don't Want to Be No Millionare" (didn't AC/DC themselves have a song with a title similar to that on the Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap album?) I've also mentioned already that this album has the original version of "Maniacs", which is better than the Break Point version because there's no annoying synth and the singer is better. The drum machine from other studio efforts by the label sounds somewhat more natural here but its presence is still noticeable. The album is cliched, but it's really not that bad.

 

    But the second Godzilla album, HOLY CRAP. This album, like Afterbirth's Who's in There? truly deserves a track by track review of its own. Before we start, it should be noted that Gary Wheeler doesn't sing on this album either.

 

    The album begins with "Ingoz", probably the stupidest intro on any album ever released. It begins with some guy whispering, "For the killing joke..." and then some random guitar riff apears. After that, we get the deadly combination of the terrible guitars, the clunky drum machine and the vocalist trying to sound scary by screaming "GODZILLA!" into the microphone but instead it sounds as if he's constipated.

 

    After that, we're treated to a seven minute cover of "Helter Skelter" by YOU KNOW WHO! The cover is probably the best part of the album, but the cover is stretched far too long and features some annoying female backing vocals and some synth that really doesn't belong in the cover.

 

    After that, we're treated to the heartfelt ballad, "Ass of the Prophet". The less we talk about that, the better.

 

    This is followed by "I Followed the Zombie", a song that must be heard to be believed. It cannot be described at all. But right now you should be thinking about the worst song in the world. Maybe it's a song by Justin Bieber, maybe it's a song from this website, or maybe even the music from Action 52 or Crazy Bus. Either way, none of those musicial failures come close to what you are about to hear (you know, except for Crazy Bus.)

 

    "Cinderella Rockefella" features the annoying backing vocalist from the "Helter Skelter" cover handling all of the vocals. This song doesn't even count as metal! There's some distorted guitars, but they're accompanied with the most annoying synthesizer riff repeated over and  over and over and over and over again!

By the middle of the song, everything is messed up. The vocals start playing backwards at different speeds, and that annoying synthesizer riff is still going! MAKE IT STOP! After doing a YouTube search, it turns out the band stole this fairly straightforward 60's song called "Cinderella Rockefella" and turned it into an abomination. BUT WHY!?!?!?!?

 

    "Halfbreed", while an incredibly stupid song, is heaven compared to those last two songs. But like every song on this album, it's way too long and repetitive. The music is still really bad and the lyrics are really stupid, but the singer in this song sounds like Nelson from The Simpsons for some reason.

 

    After "Halfbreed", we have the ambient track "Killing Joke" which actually sounds a lot like Jan List (but with even worse vocals and lyrics, which were so bad his stolen cow finally ran away from him after years of torture and abuse.) The entire thing is just the singer screaming references to earlier songs in the album and "IT'S TIME TO SAY GOOD NIGHT!" with a "creepy" atmosphere which is just slightly better than Jan's.

 

    When "Killing Joke" finally ends, we get the song "Foul." It is the best original song in the album because it features actual guitar riffs, even if they are just as generic as the ones in the first Godzilla album. Synthesizers are still dominant, making the track still not heavy metal besides having an actual riff or two.

 

    The album ends with "Outgoz", which is a pointless reprise of "Ingoz".

 

    Actually, I should take back those words. Godzilla II has changed my life. It is not a metal album, but there is no genre classification that can truly describe it. It exists in its own, isolated world, isolated even from the other albums released by Metal Enterprises. Godzilla II is a truly unique, expirimental experience. Every instrument in this album bleeds into one another with perfect harmony, with a good amount of space in the dry mix for all of them to shine at least for one song. The drum machine fits perfectly with the atmosphere, and the guitars and synthesizers have a unique sound that can't be heard anywhere else. The lyrics take us on an abstract journey that will question the mind, the soul, and just about every aspect of human nature. Most pop lyrics talk about love, dancing or just having a good time. But Godzilla write a concept piece that reveals true feelings about such things as abandonment, following zombies and even the asses of prophets. Laugh if you want, but Godzilla have the same honesty and emotion as Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon. But while The Dark Side of the Moon has become one of the biggest selling albums of all time, Godzilla II has become sadly misunderstood. Indeed, I believe Godzilla II is the best album ever released.

 

Listen to "Godzilla II"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34OKDhbKZlA

 

BONUS!

 

Listen to the theme from "Crazy Bus"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sC0cvwnG0Ik

Exmortes

Exmortes was a talentless one man band formed by Jan List in 1988. His music has frequently been described as "raw black noise" (a subgenre of black metal, which is a subgenre of heavy metal, which is a subgenre of rock originally influenced by the blues...) His first EP, the appropriately titled "****kin' Nightmare" was released in 1989. The entire production job is a mess, as well as the actual music. It was probably recorded on a four track tape in his mother's basement, which makes me wonder what happened between the recording of each song...

 

Mom: "Jan, can you please keep that down? I'm trying to make your dinner!"

Jan: "MOM! I'M RECORDING MY DEBUT EP! THIS IS IMPORTANT!"

Mom: "Oh, you and your fantasies..."

Jan: "I'M SERIOUS!"

Mom: "You can record your noise after dinn..."

Jan: "I HAVE TO RECORD THIS NOW!!!"

Mom: "SHUT UP! YOU'RE GROUNDED!"

 

    The drums sound like Jan is beating the living crap out of a cow from a local farm, as he plays some random blast beats, makes a mistake, stops for a second, and plays some more blast beats. The guitar sounds like he's playing all the wrong notes, as this cow is showing no mercy against him. The vocals are the most clear in the prodcution, as he has a unique vocal style of "mumbling into a four-track tape while you ruin your distortion petal by stepping on it way too much." The bass isn't even audible.

 

    Jan's songwriting is just as bad as his musical abilities. This has been proven by his decision to put random applause into the beginning of the EP's last track, "Destroyed Land" (it must have been about the farm he found the cow in...)

 

    In 1990, he released his second EP, "Hear the Saw... Coming Near". By now, Jan wasn't even trying anymore. He just growls his vocals into the microphone, repeats the same chord through a flanger for the duration of a song, and calls it "black metal". The only remotely positive thing I can say about this is that the atmosphere is slightly creepier than the first EP.

 

    After this, Jan released the single "Lord of Temptation" and did a split EP with Apator, some guy who screamed random sentences about Satan into a microphone and decided it was black metal. After the release of the split EP with Apator, Jan finally called it quits. Thank God.

 

Listen to "Hear the Saw... Coming Near"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zJtdHjWYBc