Outloud! Records – May 4, 2020
Riverdales + Star Wars = dumb goodness
Rarely does something new come along that seems so stupidly tailor-made for my various nerdy proclivities. But here we have a new record from Coruscants that has inspired a childlike sort of intensity from me. On Stormtrooper The Streets, members of Indiana's the Putz and Kentucky's Parasite Diet have paired the music from Riverdales Storm The Streets with re-written lyrics about the original Star Wars trilogy. And it's glorious.
Storm The Streets is my favorite Riverdales record. It's just great song after great song. Good enough that when my car cd player started sputtering and sometimes refused to eject a cd, I threw a copy of Storm in knowing I was unlikely to ever get it out, but hoping that I could just get it to play on loop for the rest of my car's life. A year and a half later, and so far, so good. The guys of Coruscants pull off the music of Storm really well. Great sound, spot-on guitar tone, excellent drum sound. It's excellent, down to the faultless transitions between songs (for instance, the stunted, abbreviated end to “Make Way” is replicated perfectly on here).
As with any great spoof, the real tell of success comes from the words. And Coruscants hit a bunch on Stormtrooper The Streets. On “Don't Ever Beat A Wookie” (née “Don't Let Them Beat My Baby”), Coruscants retell the story of C-3PO and R2-D2 learning to let Chewie win when playing holographic chess. “I Don't Wanna Go To Cloud City Tonight” (née “I Don't Wanna Go To The Party Tonight”) is a play on the visit to Lando's hideaway (“I bet the empire's already there, making deals with Lando as if he cares, he don't care”). Funny lines like “I'm your father, and I have a daughter, but you won't find that out, until Jedi comes out” (from “Cut Your Hand Off”, née “Kick Your Head In”) and “YT-1300 freighter don't fail me, you're the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy” (from “Fly Like A Freak”, née “I Am Not A Freak”) keeps the pace in this fantastically nerdy game of spot the reference. One of my absolute favorite Riverdales songs, “Riverdale Stomp” becomes “Coruscant Stomp”, opening with “I knew a guy named Han Solo, he always had money on his mind, then he rescued Princess Leia, from the empire's evil lair, then the rebel's made him go and change his mind”. They even get the phrasing patterns right and stress the right syllables. I love it.
That's Coruscants. Stormtrooper The Streets is simply a lot of dumb fun.
Why you might like it:
- This is a note-perfect recreation of Riverdales Storm The Streets; if you like that, you'll like this
- Star Wars-referencing parody that leaves you trying to decipher lyrical nuggets throughout
Why you might not:
- If you hate Riverdales or Star Wars (or fun) you're likely to hate this, too.
ryan is a reviewer and news editor for TGEFM. He's very secretive, he might be an alien.