It Came From the ‘70s: Laverne and Shirley Sing

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I’ve already written about ‘70s novelty albums based on Lenny and Squiggy and The Odd Couple, but this one is the piece de resistance of albums based on Garry Marshall shows: the way too optimistically titled Laverne and Shirley Sing. Personally, I think a much more accurate title would have been Can Laverne and Shirley Sing?

 While the album is long out of print, it was re-released on CD a number of years back, but that too is now out of print. But, shockingly, it's currently available on iTunes. Being a lover of obscure/weird/bad music, I paid the $7.99 plus tax to get it. And...wow...just...just wow.

 In all fairness, Penny Marshall (Laverne) and Cindy Williams (Shirley) are both talented individuals. It’s just that singing really isn’t one of their talents. But is it really that bad? To be honest, they're not horrible, it's just that the album sounds like two people singing karaoke.

As for the songs themselves, they're mostly covers of 1950s rock songs, or at the very least they sound like rock songs from the '50s. There's a track of Marshall and Williams reading yearbook notes in character as Laverne and Shirley that was kind of fun, and one of the songs was written by Michael McKean (Lenny from the show), but it too sounds like your typical '50s rock tune. And to be honest, that's actually more of where the album doesn't work for me: I can't stand that type of music.

I tried to get through this one. Really. But I haven't actually been able to listen to this one all the way through. And I enjoy bad music! But there comes a point where something crosses the line from "so bad it's good" to "so bad it's irredeemable", and this album falls into that latter category for me. Granted, part of it is due to the type of music itself.

And can we talk about that cover? Does anybody else find that kind of bizarre? What's up with the popsicles? What an odd choice. Is that supposed to be sexy? I just don't get it.

In the pantheon of bad music, I place this one right up there with Pat Boone's In a Metal Mood.

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