Only In America - Volume 2 | Unique American Stories & Culture | Perfect for Travel Enthusiasts & Gift Ideas

Not in the same league as the five-star volume one. Those with a passing interest in oddball recordings may find that they already have some of this on song-poem CDs or the Pebbles collections. What remains lacks those few brilliant oddities that make collections worthwhile.The Langley Schools CD is well-known but just a taste is enough for me, and that's what "Little Deuce Coupe" serves to provide here. Volume one included "Allan Smithee" type spoken word edicts from 60s "warnings for teens" albums or movies. Anything in that same vein is missing in action here, whether newsreel absurdity, "teen talks" albums, audio from movie trailers like "Teenage Gang Debs", or instructional records. Another missing thread is the interesting record resulting from people experimenting with (sometimes new) technology. That wouldn't matter if what did appear here had a center of gravity above amusingly ill-conceived vanity records. I ripped the CD, added it to a cloud playlist so they would turn up randomly along with a wide variety of other music. After two or three listenings I found myself removing tracks from the playlist. Every track has a backstory, but backstory doesn't make a song, album, artist or career. Nothing close to volume one's triumphs like "Chef d'Oeuvre", "There's a New Sound" or "The Vacuum".I strongly recommend volume one of "Only in America". I'd also recommend the song-poem best of collection, "Big Wood and Brush". And I appreciate the effort to put out a second volume. The scope just seems narrower here, as though it got looped into that whole "Outsider" thing instead of just compiling great, strange records.