With a love for and a seemingly endless knowledge of classic hard rock and metal, Tenacious D like to squeeze every possible rock reference and cliche they can into their music. (In a good way).
Taken seriously, this could go horribly wrong, bringing us into the territory of the pretentious and/or the precocious. (Like when The Darkness claim they aren't taking the piss. Don't get me wrong, if you ignore most of the second album, they still rock.)
Fortunately, for "the D", it's all a bit of a giggle - they love what they do and they particularly like the silliness of it all. Which makes sense, given that it's the band of one of the leading comedy actors of our time, Jack Black. Filling out the band is Kyle Gass, talented guitarist and I assume actor mate of Black's. (One thing that pops into my mind is how many people does it take to make a band - I mean, the word band suggests more of a group, surely. Like Robin Hood and his band of Merry Men. Of course, then you get one-man-bands and it all goes to hell).
Anyways, after a longish spell between drinks (the first Tenacious D album - featuring the single Tribute - was released in 2001), the second D album was released last year and is the soundtrack to their upcoming film entitled (unsurprisingly) Tenacious D in: The Pick of Destiny.
I haven't seen the film yet but the soundtrack plays out in someways like a bit of a rock opera and gives you a pretty good idea of the storyline - essentially a warped bio-pic of the band where at some point they get hold of a mystical guitar pick making them rock-gods.
The majority of the tracks are story oriented and draw from a range of rock influences, from Black Sabbath to Nirvana, from Sport metal (whatever happened to sport metal) to the obligatory awful ballad that has been a rock staple ever since Kiss let Peter Criss record Beth. (OMG, just checked out wikipedia and Beth is their highest charting single ever - go figure).
But that's not all - Jack Black and Kyle Gass also find the long-lost lyrics to classical pieces including Eine Kleine Nacht Musik and other tunes that I'm ashamed to say I don't know the names of. (Update - Found one - Beethoven's Fur Elise) Check it out here in a clip where the two first meet.
Other highlights on this album are Meatloaf as Jack Black's repressive rock hating Dad, Dio (Ronny James Dio - Black Sabbath) as some kind of rock guardian angel (I think), a great car chase song and a final confrontation "rock off" with the devil that includes the lines "I'm the devil, I love metal - check this riff it's fucking tasty".
The Tenacious D style of humour isn't for everyone, it often slants towards the crass 14yo boy kind of thing but for me, the exuberance of Jack Black's performance, his showmanship and the bands obvious love for what they are doing make it all worthwhile. If you don't come in expecting profound social commentary or philosophical insights and are happy to have some great rockin' fun, this is for you.
Oh and by the way, I couldn't let this pass - doing a little fact checking on wikipedia (I know it's not perfect but I trust it) and I noticed that the opening line of the definition of Tenacious D is as follows :
Tenacious D is an American rock band composed of musician/actors Kyle Gass (a.k.a. "KG", "Kage","Rage Kage") and Jack Black (a.k.a. "JB", "Jables"). Their style fuses rock with pure fucking awsomeness.
Now you wouldn't get that kind of accuracy in the Encyclopedia Britannica. :)
