Steve 'Flash' JuonAs rap albums go “The Beavis and Butt-Head Experience” is stretching the definition to almost the breaking point. That said if you include the unadvertised “hidden track” I think we can get at least 33% of the way there, and that’s enough for me to justify an album that came along at a pivotal time in my life. I’m going to start with a brief explanation of who Beavis and Butt-Head are though for those of you who have been living in a fascist state for 30 years and are just now looking at the internet for the first time. The odds you’d come here of all places seems minuscule at best but I’ll roll with it anyway.
Before Mike Judge became a juggernaut in the entertainment world, he was a bored California kid with a degree in physics and no interest in office politics. He joined and left a startup tech firm, he played bass in a touring blues band, and eventually while pursuing a post graduate degree in math he took up animation as a hobby. MTV had a show called Liquid Television showcasing the work of independent animators, and Judge submitted a short called “Frog Baseball” where two aimless teenagers amuse themselves by inventing an incredibly vulgar and abusive sport. Like so much of early Beavis and Butt-Head canon, the most violent and disturbing nature of their antics would not pass YouTube community standards today, but MTV prided itself on being edgy and youth oriented and offered Judge a show. Some of the earliest episodes of Beavis and Butt-Head are now only available as bootlegs, but the ones that survived rotation for repeat airing garnered the duo (voiced by Judge) a cult audience.
Judge was attempting to mock and satirize the culture of aimless white teenagers obsessed with sex and violence, but their antics often hurt nobody but themselves and occasionally took aim at authority figures who were even more shallow and self-centered than them. Unintentionally they became anti-hero figures respected by a mainstream audience, and in regular segments between their comic misadventures, they would sit on the couch and mock the very music videos that gave MTV its name. Such was their power as pop icon that if they said “Winger sucks” it actually hurt the band’s touring success and album sales. I’m not saying they’re the sole reason Winger disbanded in 1994, but it didn’t help. Conversely bands with perverse names like the Butthole Surfers might have languished in obscurity if the duo didn’t declare them “cool” and say their music “ruled.”
Judge had no choice but to either ride the gravy train he had accidentally created or try to sabotage it in an act of defiance. By now you’re already aware he chose the former and took it straight to the bank with t-shirts, video games, books, albums and (eventually) a major motion picture. One of the many projects spawned by their runaway success was “The Beavis and Butt-Head Experience,” the album we are talking about today released by Geffen Records in 1993. The album in many ways foreshadowed their pop culture future, as the miscreants inexplicably found themselves mingling with mainstream stars, all while remaining just as perverted and demented as ever. On this CD they get kicked off a tour bus by Anthrax, attempt to convince Run-D.M.C. that they’re from Hollis, Queens, and record duets with both Cher and Positive K.
That brings us to the “33%” I mentioned in the intro. There are four tracks out of 12 on this hour long CD that are undeniably rap-related. Anthrax does a cover of the Beastie Boys classic “Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun.” Run-D.M.C. contributed an exclusive track called “Bounce,” and Sir Mix-A-Lot joined the fray with “Monsta Mack.” To get to that magical one third mark though you have to leave track twelve playing after their version of “I Got You Babe” with Cher. After a period of silence the bonus “Come to Butt-Head (Reprise)” track with Positive K providing rap verses kicks in.
Now if one wanted to be extra generous, that 33% could be stretched all the way to 50% without too much effort. The slap funk of Primus has always had its roots in the seminal P-Funk bands of George Clinton, and the lyrics of “Poetry and Prose” are definitely being rapped and not sung in any way. Add the non-rap version of “Come to Butt-Head” if you like as well, because neither Butt-Head nor Beavis are doing any “singing” either. Unlike Les Claypool I wouldn’t call what they’re doing any form of rap or even poetry, but the silky smooth R&B backdrop makes it a parody of crossover rap songs where hard rocks get soft to win the ladies.
Where does that leave us with the other 50% though? In pretty good hands as far as I’m concerned. Since I was already a fan of their show (right age, right place, right time — fresh out of high school, living in a college dorm, watching cable television) I was definitely not going to pass their album up when the student radio station got a promo copy. A fellow DJ who was a metal head had already gotten me to explore the genre further than Anthrax jamming with Public Enemy, so Megadeth’s “99 Ways to Die” and White Zombie’s “I Am Hell” clicked for me. And being a DJ and a frequent MTV viewer, I was already intimately familiar with Nirvana and Red Hot Chili Peppers, so I had no objections to their contributions either. I realize Aerosmith’s “Deuces Are Wild” might be the album’s biggest hit, but compared to the rest of their catalogue I can take it or leave it. I don’t hate it but it’s not a favorite.
For me that only leaves Jackyl’s “Mental Masturbation” as the only song I consistently skipped any time I listened to the album, then or now. Nostalgia and rose-colored tints make “The Beavis and Butt-Head Experience” more important to me than it probably is, even though the album went platinum and only further accelerated their rise to commercial success (and negative reputation with Christians who accidentally made them MORE popular). I wouldn’t call the Run-D.M.C., Sir Mix-A-Lot or Positive K performances here the best of their career. It made me happy as a hardcore rap fan to see them get representation on an album based on/around a MTV cartoon, but these songs aren’t essential. They’re good, but not “buy this album just for these tracks” good. In fact the Anthrax cover of the Beastie Boys is arguably the best rap song here — go figure. Suffice it to say that what really pulls this album together is in fact the pull Mike Judge’s creation had, to get everybody from Cher to Run-D.M.C. to participate in the joke of two animated dorks who just want to score and set things on fire.