Audioxide

[Note from the editor: Following countless legal threats from Krusty the Clown's infamously litigious team, we've taken the difficult decision to remove André’s allegation laced review of Krustophenia ]

It would be an easy thing to dismiss Krustophenia. To say it’s a mere cash grab, the kind of cultural dreg that can only exist through a cocktail of gambling debts and artistic bankruptcy; to shrug it off as the nadir of a clownish clown career; to entertain the thought that going back in time and killing baby Krusty the Clown would have been better for everyone. It would be an easy thing to do.

There is, however, a little more to the record than that. While I, like most, look at Krustophenia with a combination of disgust and bemusement - and from as far away as possible - its grotesqueness is also striking. It has the freedom and fury of a man who knew he had nothing left to lose. While fellow Springfield outfit The Be Sharps were delighting audiences with crystal clear barbershop harmonies, Krusty was overdubbing synthesizer tracks to an extent not heard before or since. The results in tracks like “Mel Boy (Mel’s theme)” and “The Clown and the Rabbi Father” are migrainous, but then who said music has to be easy on the ears? Anyone who denies the obvious impact Krustophenia had on The Downward Spiral is lying to themselves.

Still, there’s no getting around the record’s weaknesses. Like Krusty himself, tracks are all too often bloated and revolting. Listening to Krustophenia is a laborious, depressing experience. Glimpses of brilliance are fleeting. At just over four hours long it’s not so much a rock opera as a rock dirge, and the recurring clown horn motif remains especially grating.

It’s a tricky thing returning to an album like this. Hidden among Krustofsky’s considerably lower brow moments in his career as a musician, Krustophenia was the release that was meant to rejuvenate his image, giving him a more serious persona as an artist. Critics have retrospectively pitched it against classics such as The Yellow Album, but having had time with it while writing this review, I’m starting to think it has far more in common with Krusty Klowns Klezmer!.

Right off the bat, Krustofski gives us “I Am The Klown” and “The Real Shoe”. A two minute cut of the man quietly whining and grumbling into the mic, backed by his gravelly smoker’s wheeze before the drums kick in and he complains about his health issues for a further three minutes. In an interview at the time, Herschel described how this album explored themes of identity and authenticity, but if this is his authentic self, I don’t want anything to do with it. I have other grievances too, as much later on in this staggering near-hour-and-a-half deluge of sound, “Mel Boy (Mel’s theme)” mixes the eponymous sidekick’s love of the nose flute and violent intolerance to lactose in a grim affair of audio.

Credit where it’s due though. Titular track, “Krustophenia” is a stand out among much of the filler here, largely because Herschella had little to do with it. Castellaneta and Elfman instead take to the fore, mixing orchestral and rock elements to provide something uniquely catchy, and using production techniques which, for the time, were incredibly cutting edge. It’s this six minute epic that I’ve returned to most when I’ve made it through the rest.

That aside though, I don’t think Krustophenia has aged well. Next to more experimental, albeit accomplished and acclaimed, albums such as Krust, this may feel like easier listening without the brash novelty of Yerucham’s other work, but unfortunately I’ve found myself yearning more for tracks from Face Down on Mojito Beach and S’Wonderful S’Marvelous S’Krusty than anything that can be found in this tracklist.