The Simpsons: The Yellow Album

For six years, The Yellow Album—the follow-up to 1990's best-selling sort-of soundtrack, The Simpsons Sing The Blues—has been periodically scheduled for release, only to be shelved at the last minute. What gives Well, as you might guess at this point, it's fucking awful. Like its predecessor, The Yellow Album sinks under the weight of jokeless, excruciating duets (Homer and Linda Ronstadt's "Funny How Time Slips Away," Lisa and Ann Wilson's "Sisters Are Doin' It For Themselves"), staggeringly cheesy session work, and uneven vocal performances. (Why does Lisa Simpson sound like she's on helium half the time) All that's missing from the jaw-droppingly unfunny, calculated "Do The Bartman" sequels—"The Ten Commandments Of Bart" and "Love," the latter of which is one of two songs arranged by the long-defunct C+C Music Factory—are the rap stylings of former Paula Abdul partner MC Skat Kat. The cover art is amusing enough, but there are really no mitigating factors here. The Yellow Album would have been a cutout-bin-ready dud in 1992; now, it just sounds like a lame, embarrassing relic that never should have been released.