Flight of the Conchords is a New Zealand comedy duo made up of Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement. Not since the band Crowded House has something so satisfying hit the mainstream of America from New Zealand, the sheep-dotted country east of Australia.
Conchord Roomies
Bret and Jemaine are two very funny and musically talented guys who met as roommates at Victoria University of Wellington. They formed the musical and comedic duo Flight of the Conchords in 1998 and created a small but loyal following of folks who recognized their unique talents. Flight of the Conchords got their own BBC radio show in 2004, and won the Bronze Sony Radio Academy Award for Comedy.
Success Takes Flight
The BBC accolades (as well as years of hard work in lesser known musical festival venues in Europe) led to McKenzie and Clement scoring an HBO comedy series in 2007 entitled Flight of the Conchords. Meanwhile, Flight of the Conchords won Best Comedy Album for their EP, The Distant Future. From the comedy series on HBO, the New Zealand lads released a comedy album also entitled Flight of the Conchords in 2008.
Everybody Loves Bret and Jemaine
The appeal of the CD Flight of the Conchords seems to span nationalities and age groups. Kids love the song, The Distant Future, which is about the robots taking over the earth and killing all the humans. Sound funny? Maybe not, but FOC demands many listens and yields many laughs.
Musical Comedy
The other part of the appeal of Bret and Jemaine is that their songs are carefully crafted parodies of music, our culture, David Bowie and ourselves. At first listen these songs seem familiar and straight forward, but if you listen carefully to the lyrics, the songs in their entirety have the capability of killing with comedy. In the song, The Most Beautiful Girl, Jemaine is struck by a girl who is the most beautiful girl in the room and tells her she could be a part-time model, or an air-line hostess from the '60s.
Subtle but killing lyrics are meant to parody every carpe diem song where a man compliments a woman to win her affections. Like Bugs Bunny, the music of Flight of the Conchords uses wit and intelligence to make fans of adults and kids. The HBO TV series Flight of the Conchords is recommended for mature audiences only.
In this acoustic version of Business Time, Bret and Jemaine of Flight of the Conchords demonstrate their love of Wednesday night.
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