Put Your Phazers on Stun Throw Your Health Food Skyward

Album Review

It's difficult to expect anything good from an artist whose reported m.o. includes Manhattan's legendary 52nd Street scene of the '40s, Motown during the '60s (he claims several Holland/Dozier/Zinger compositions), and a credit on "Strings of Life." (Mr. Zinger is actually former Galliano frontman Rob Gallagher.) Yes, Earl Zinger is a humorist at heart, a sleazy lounge persona who makes Jimi Tenor sound like Thomas Brinkmann. And in the worldwide dance scene, he has plenty to poke fun at. Put Your Phazers on Stun Throw Your Health Food Skyward offers plenty of hilarity, from the house-holiday sendup "Escape From Ibiza" to the Fatboy Slim-on-safari "Last of the Great Bassline Hunters." Zinger also croaks a pot fantasy to the tune of "My Favorite Things" over a Badly Drawn Boy loop, offers several tracks with cartoon chipmunk vocals, and faithfully covers War's "Galaxy" with either no discernible irony, or loads of it. Surprisingly, there are plenty of great productions too; "On My Way Home" is a crazed mambo shuffle delivered by Vincent Price, "Song 2Wo" an indecipherable Blur cover that quickly devolves into an excellent rocksteady number, complete with heavily reverbed vocals. Zinger fails to answer the age-old question of whether humor belongs in music, but he certainly offers an entertaining set of songs.