Hellbeast Mr. Blobby has gained notoriety in the contemporary eye as a strange pop culture entity. His nostalgic ways and bumbling stylistic have wiped the minds of many in the nation, but his resurgence does not go unnoticed. Crinkleybottom remains in the distant memory, but Blobby is back. There was a time when This Morning would not play host to the Eldrich beast of horrors, but back then Mr. Blobby was too big for Holly and Phil. So big, in fact, that he enjoyed chart success. The horror of being associated with Noel Edmonds is nowhere close to the terrors of The Album, an ominously titled piece from the darker days of children’s pop entertainment.
Spoken word in places, with moderately tolerable comedic moments between Edmonds and the satanic beast, Old Macblobby Had a Farm sets a precedence for the rest of the album. Mr. Blobby is just The Smurfs but with a horrible bowtie and lack of international acclaim. Replacing the usual words with “blobby, blobby, blob” is not musical clarity. Burp noises, blobby insets, a very childish rendition that would appeal to nobody over the age of three. Even then, however much the under-three population can get from The Album, given its articulate attempts at actual punchlines, is redundant. Whether or not a novelty pop album should last for nearly an hour is not up for debate. It should not.
There is a disturbing narrative throughout these tracks, which dip and dive between radio interview between Blobby and Edmonds as well as fifteen tracks. Yes, fifteen. Edmonds’ commitment to introducing, with sincerity, the likes of Blob Lake, is equally as disturbing as it is profiteering from a genre that could be respectable if it weren’t for novelty concepts like this. Genuinely, most of the tracks on here are disturbing. Well-mixed and creating a soundscape that would fit into some abstract, tongue-in-cheek horror show where the lighting is a little too dull and the surroundings are all a little crooked. A bit like Coraline, but instead of a spider mother the entity chasing down the protagonist is Mr. Blobby. Mr. Blobby March II is the sort of track a dictator writes for themselves.
Each track is, more or less, just an iteration of the actual chart topper Mr. Blobby, but with a Brian May-like guitar riff here or an orchestral mockery there. Can music be satire? Yes. Can Mr. Blobby’s The Album be classed as such? By definition, technically so, but to do so would be to accept that Mr. Blobby has made an album that, quality or not, has met its creative goal. Insufferably bad, but there is always the defence of novelty pop lingering around. The mixing is solid, it is not as annoying as Crazy Frog’s work on Crazy Hits and there is a sickening, dependable nostalgia. Like it or not, The Album is a good indicator of just how low a time it was for British culture, and how fast it bounced back. There are people with cherished memories of Mr. Blobby and his musical material, and those same people should be thrown into padded rooms.
Discover more from Cult Following
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
