…and some other albums that you probably don’t need to hear to know that they weren’t such a good idea.
Joe Pesci, Vincent LaGuardia Gambini Sings Just for You
In 1992 Pesci starred as the Italian-American lawyer Vincent LaGuardia Gambini in My Cousin Vinny. More than six years later, he released an album in character as Gambini, a stereotypical New York Italian, singing old standards such as “What a Wonderful World” and “I Can’t Give You Anything but Love,” all littered with expletives. While some listeners hailed it as a comedic success, the timing of the marketing campaign was off—so much time had passed since the movie came out that the album fell flat. Bad reviews didn’t help, either; one critic described it as “a mound of failed songs and lame jokes.”
Many young actresses (Lindsay Lohan, Hilary Duff) have released pop albums, but Johansson (Lost in Translation, Girl With a Pearl Earring) did something different—an album of songs written by the gravelly voiced, world-weary songwriter Tom Waits. Despite a good supporting cast (a guest spot by David Bowie and production by critically acclaimed musician Dave Sitek), the album tanked—perhaps because audiences couldn’t relate to a glamorous, 22-year-old millionaire singing lines like “Give a man gin, give a man cards / give an inch he takes a yard / and I rue the day that I stepped off this train.”
Murphy recorded three albums of pop/soul music, including one in 1985 that featured his sole hit, “Party All the Time.” But, to his fans’ disappointment, none of his music had any trace of the humor or edginess that made Murphy a star comedian and actor. On his 1993 album, Love’s Alright (his last to date), he lined up a dozen celebrity cameos from megastars like Garth Brooks, Michael Jackson, and Paul McCartney for the opening track, “Yeah.” Any witty lyrics here? Not really—over a psychedelic backing track, Murphy and his famous friends take turns saying or singing “yeah.”
Study finding: 25% of people suffer from paranoid thoughts brought on by media sensationalism.
In 1956 and ’57, Harry Belafonte almost single-handedly ushered in a calypso-music craze in the U.S. with his two smash-hit albums, Belafonte and Calypso. Of all people to cash in on the fad, perhaps the least likely was the stone-faced, tough-guy movie star Robert Mitchum (The Night of the Hunter, Thunder Road). While filming a movie in Trinidad in 1957, Mitchum fell in love with the music. His album, Calypso Is Like So…, is a fairly authentic attempt, too, with steel drums and horns. But Mitchum couldn’t quite pull it off—even though he was a good enough vocalist to sing his own parts in several musicals, his voice wasn’t up to the challenge. And more embarrassing, if not a little racist, was the fact that he adopted an “island” dialect, singing “dis” and “dem” for “this” and “them.”
A hip tape of TV chef and talk-show host Rachael Ray singing for kids? Actually, no—Ray doesn’t sing or play an instrument on this 2006 album, none of the songs have anything to do with school, and it’s not even a tape, it’s a CD. The album is just a Ray-approved collection of pop songs that kids would theoretically like, such as Janis Joplin’s “Mercedes Benz” and Harry Nilsson’s “Coconut”—which also happens to be one of the few songs that have anything to do with food.
Cabot was the hefty British character actor best known for playing Mr. French on the ’60s sitcom Family Affair. With his clipped, upper-crust accent and impeccable diction, his delivery is pretty much the opposite of Bob Dylan’s braying mumble. That made this 1967 album an especially odd choice, with Cabot half-singing, half-speaking the songs and poems of Dylan, who, at the time, was one of the hottest acts in music.
Singapore is the only country where adult children are legally responsible for supporting their parents.