A highlight of the album is Eric Cartman's stirring rendition of Come Sail Away, performed with a maturity that belies his age. This is really gorgeous. Brad Logan by Rancid is a passionate slab of angry rock as is Hot Lava by Perry Farrell. The South Park urchins appear with Wyclef Jean on the tuneful ballad Bubblegoose. Wake Up Wendy sees Elton John in a rocking mood on this great love song with its rollicking keyboards, whilst Huboon Stomp by Devo represents a welcome return by these 1980s new wavers and Love Gravy is a surprisingly soulful duet by the legendary Ike Turner and Rick James.
Feel Like Makin' Love by Ned Gerblansky sounds like something by The Residents, and another highlight is H°m0 Rainbow by Ween, sensitively introduced by Chef, and what a beautiful rock ballad it is! Speaking of which, Meat Loaf puts in a sparkling, if somewhat over-energized, performance on his duet with Chef, Tonight Is Right For Love. The chef manages to restrain him, and they conclude the song in soulful harmony to rapturous applause.
Next up is Joe Strummer with It's A Rockin' World, an impressive old-style rock song. Mentally Dull by Vitro and the South Park Cast concludes this riveting live album and here one can hear not only the urchins but their wonderful mothers too, on a fabulous grand finale. Chef Aid is remarkable in its diversity, with shlt hot rock, hip-hop, funk and smooth soul by the lovable Chef himself; it's the best live album in my collection. Sure it's a bit rude here and there but so is popular culture nowadays.
Of course, the South Park characters steal the show time and time again. Any Chef Aid album has to have cuts from the man in the big white hat himself, and Chef gives us three of his classic performances, songs which we had only been able to hear snippets of on the show: fan favorite Chocolate Salty Balls (P.S. I Love You), Simultaneous, and No Substitute. Then Chef teams up with Meatloaf to record a quite memorable version of his classic love song Tonight is Right For Love, and he makes uncredited appearances on a number of other songs, including the rather hilarious entry from the larynx-challenged Ned Gerblansky. Two other Chef tracks are included here, but they appear in the form of covers by other artists. Perry Farrell and D.V.D.A. team up for Hot Lava, while Love Gravy is performed by the dynamic duo of funk-meister Rick James and Ike Turner.
Of course, there’s no way you are going to keep my main man Eric Cartman off an album such as this. As all fans of the show know, his favorite song, one he has to sing through in its entirety whenever he hears just a snippet of it, is Come Sail Away; the full version a la Cartman is a great treat, especially toward the end when Chef tries to jump in and hijack the song. Cartman’s not through yet, though, as he, along with Stan, Kyle, and Kenny, teams up with Wyclef Jean on the hugely entertaining song Bubblegoose. Most likely you are expecting to hear Cartman’s famous Kyle’s Mom’s a big fat B— on here; don’t despair, as it does indeed eventually arrive to close the album out on a perfect note.
Master P’s smooth delivery of Kenny’s Dead is great, the contributions of Rancid, Ween, Joe Strummer, and 70s icon Devo are unusual yet a lot of fun, and even Elton John manages to rock out pretty impressively. The undeniably catchy song Horny is presented in a very unusual way, with Matt and Trey explaining throughout the course of it just how much they hate the song and do not want it on the album. There is really only one bad song on the album. Mephisto and Kevin, Primus’ non-theme song contribution, is not even what I would call a song and succeeds only in becoming a sad mockery of itself.
As a South Park fan, I love this album. Perhaps the best thing about it, though, is its inclusion of artists I was not previously familiar with; I may never have heard of the likes of Wyclef Jean, for example, had I not purchased this album, and that is the reason I believe that South Park opponents can enjoy this album almost as much as us hard-core South Park fans.
Please note this item is "South Park: Chef Aid (Extreme Edition)" not "South Park: Mr Hankey's Christmas Classics"...
