Neil's Heavy Concept Album
| Neil's Heavy Concept Album | |
|---|---|
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| Studio album by Neil | |
| Released | 1984 |
| Recorded | 1982–1983 |
| Genre | Comedy |
| Length | 41:37 |
| Label | WEA International |
| Producer | Dave Stewart |
| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   |
Neil's Heavy Concept Album is a 1984 recording of songs and spoken comedy routines by British actor Nigel Planer, in character as the long-suffering hippie Neil from the BBC comedy series The Young Ones. Production, arrangements and keyboards are by Canterbury scene keyboardist Dave Stewart, who also plays guitar, bass and drums. Other players on the album include ex-members of bands such as Gong, Spooky Tooth and Level 42.
The title is self-referentially ironic, since progressive rock concept albums are supposed to have "heavy concepts" but "Neil's Heavy Concept Album" does not. Also, the front of the album sleeve is a loose parody of The Rolling Stones' Their Satanic Majesties Request album sleeve. The rear side is a parody of the Beatle's Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, with Neil wearing different outfits replacing the images of the four Beatles, and the text "A heavy time is guaranteed for all." replacing "A splendid time is guaranteed for all."
The album followed the success of the Neil single "Hole in My Shoe" — a cover version of Traffic's 1967 hit – which reached number 2 in the United Kingdom.
The album starts with a spoken apology ("Hello Vegetables") in which Neil says the album was "a hassle to make and there's much too much technology and commercial stuff on it". Additional spoken tracks include Neil having a conversation with a potato in a sewer, reciting a poem to his rubber plant Wayne ("your roots are in the earth, mine are in Twickenham"), and experiencing a flashback in the track "Paranoid Remix" which features Beatles-esque backwards noises and voices, and ends with a parody of the last chord from "A Day in the Life". A parody horror movie commercial, which sees vegetarian Neil being turned into a carnivorous monster after accidentally eating a hamburger leads into the original Planer composition "Lentil Nightmare", a dark heavy metal number that quotes briefly from King Crimson's "The Court of the Crimson King" and features Planer singing in an uncharacteristic wailing, high falsetto. In the disco/rap number "Bad Karma in the UK", Neil's mother (played by musician Barbara Gaskin) admonishes him to watch his I Ching, chew his food eleven times, and remember his expectorant. "God Save the Queen" is performed as a cabaret number by a bad American standup comic.
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