CD Review
Brendon Burns: Pompously Lectures Americans
3 1/2 stars (out of 5)
Did you know a quarter of Australia was on fire this year? It must have happened during the Superbowl. Brendon Burns thinks there is a lot Americans are unaware of. He is an emissary from the land where some elected officials are gay and none of them have ever been action stars. From Australia by way of the U.K., Burns brings us Pompously Lectures Americans, an intelligent, yet playful album during which American supermarket items are personified into screaming, lunatic satyrs and Ann Coulter is indicted as being truly unhuman in the eyes of the English speaking majority.
He wants us to understand that we are not the liberal forefront we so often consider ourselves. When Brendan Burns returns to Earth from a mushrooms trip, the fact that Arnold Schwarzenegger is actually a governor in this country makes him unsure if the world is real. Our ability to elect blood spattered action stars is like the spinning top from Inception in his brain. This and other inarguably fretful characteristics of America are amassed, like how supermarkets offer two types of apples but upwards of 50 types of ranch dressing.
While casually parsing through American problems, he intermittently reminds us that in Australia, “We are on fucking fire!” This provides a realistic backdrop to his claim of America’s narcissistic ways. He even says that Carlin’s humor would only work in America, because he’s essentially just a European (which I’m pretty sure qualifies as an act of war against The States).
This set isn’t designed to have a profound effect on Americans with less progressive social viewpoints, but it requires its liberal audience to recalibrate and think “Hey, even though we aren’t complete gremlins, maybe we still need to think from time to time!” But, Burns does award America a 1-0 victory over England in race relations, so take that everyone!
Pompously Lectures Americans is available now.
