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The Residents - The Census Taker (Original Soundtrack) CD (album) cover

THE CENSUS TAKER (ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK)

The Residents

 

RIO/Avant-Prog

2.45 | 19 ratings

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TCat
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator / Retired Admin
2 stars This was the first soundtrack that was commissioned to The Residents. But don't expect a full or even a partial orchestra here. It's about as minimal as The Residents gets as far as instruments go. It seems to be all electronic. It's as weird as The Residents can get too, that weird humor. It's only fitting that it was Penn Jillette (Yes the one from Penn and Teller) that recommended The Residents as the band to do the soundtrack. I haven't seen the movie, so I wouldn't know whether it was well done or not, but it is billed as a black comedy. The plot is about a very irritating census taker who keeps asking a certain couple questions that keep getting more abusive and ludicrous to the point that the couple decide to kill the census taker and then have to get a friend to help them hide the body. That's all I know about it.

As far as the album goes, it sounds like a Devo album with the music stripped down to one synthesizer. On top of that, it is very sparse as far as lyrics go, with only 2 tracks with vocals. Most of the songs are older Residents songs that have been reworked. There are a few original songs here, but nothing really amazing or outstanding. I have heard most of The Residents very extensive discography and this one is one of the least interesting. I suppose it didn't do very well on it's own and the album was rather quickly pulled off the shelves and put into the cut out bins. It's a collector's item now. It was later released together with "Whatever Happened to Vileness Fats?", but that one is hard to find now too.

Anyway, there are much better Residents albums out there. While interesting because of it's novelty more than anything, it offers nothing groundbreaking or interesting that you can't find elsewhere in their discography, so I have to give this one 2 stars.

TCat | 2/5 |

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