Album Review: America's Fave Dragapella® Beautyshop Quartet High Kicks Back On Their New Album THE KINSEY SICKS: DRAG QUEEN STORYTIME GONE WILD

Heigh Ho, dear lovely rainbow tribe, welcome back to Bobby’s CD sandbox where we offer our broken-down breakdowns of new music releases. So, strap in and get ready, as Bobby goes on the record ABOUT the record.

This week’s album entry in the BobbyFiles comes from the fab drag foursome The Kinsey Sicks. Billed as a Dragapella® Beautyshop Quartet (see what they did there, kiddies?) the Kinsey Sicks now have a dozen albums to their name with the release of their latest, DRAG QUEEN STORYTIME GONE WILD! This collection is a LIVE recording of their latest hit show of the same title. Creatively here, The Sicks layer their parody of a parody performing parodies on thick as a response to the unwarranted attacks on the Drag community ,and on us LGBTQIA+ people, everywhere. The most public of these attacks has been conservatives up in arms over drag queens who give up their time to read to the little kiddie-winkies, and, oh, have they been vocal. So it is only fitting, then, that this drag acapella foursome would create some vocals of their own in response … and so they have.  Tackling the latest right-wing hysteria, these drag queens have linked arms across Waverly Place, and are high-kicking their way into the faces of all those who would come for us, and using the excellent 4-part vocal arrangements, and music direction of group member Trixie (The Filipino-TASTICK Jeff Manabat), they are armed to the teeth with naughty send-ups of Disney “Family” classics and a satyrical nothing-is-sacred-attitude toward it all. Along with Trixie/Jeff, the other three men behind the women are Nathan Marken (Winnie), Spencer Brown (Trampolina), & J.B. Mclendon (Angel), and together these four make up the Sicks.
 

STORYTIME GONE WILD is a live/in-performance album recorded in San Francisco and features 20 tracks, including a dozen new parodies. The album lays out nicely as a live show since, in and amongst the music, there are talkie bits as transitions between the songs. One gets to hear the group enjoying the audience, and vice versa, however, those talkie bits are meant to be comedic, and herein is the stumbling block on this type of recording. The audience responses don’t feel big enough and, therefore, do not grab us listeners with enough energy to put the comedy over. One can tell the girls are a hoot, but not all the setups land in our ears the way they might inside the venue, with the ladies' performances live and up close. The setup is a loose(ish) format where the audience is students being taught about the "evils of Drag." Employing songs like THERE’S A LITTLE S&!T INSIDE OF EVERYONE (an original song about how the world is full of it) and parodies like WHEN YOU WISH TO BE A STAR (a “lesson” in scheming and making your life a social media version of ALL ABOUT EVE), the quartette basically goes after not only things like Disney but today’s social media clamber for attention and the almighty click young people crave. Then there is a particular fave of Little Bobby’s, NAUGHTY NURSERY RHYME MEDLEY, a mashup paean to hooking up in the modern world that spoofs oldies like THREE BLIND MICE with FREE GRINDR ADVICE, and I’M A LITTLE TEAPOT becomes I’M A LITTLE SEXPOT, all very graphically queer in its send-up of Mother Goose (more like Daddy Bear Goose) and just being shameless about it all. The complexity of the arrangement by Manabat is dizzying while still comprehensible. Track 5, SESAME SEEDS (get it my angels… SESAME STREET) is a satire about antisemitism. Who doesn’t want a good bagel with SESAME SEEDS, right? This song takes hilarious aim at the right for having another fave target, other than those in drag… you guessed it, The Jews! It even has a chorus of JewJewJewJew in the backup vocals. Track 14, A WHOLE NEW HOLE (Disney is rolling in his refrigerator)... Oh My Goodness!  Nothing is sacred. This song send-up is so dirty, that Bobby can’t write about it. Goodness Gracious... and hilarious!! Finally, the Sicks bring it all home with POOF THE MAGIC DRAG QUEEN, whose original was an almost sacred song, and to spoof Puff would be sacrilege, were it not done with such love and respect and a positive message about the nobility of Drag and queerness. It is touching and empowering, hopeful, and lovely with a great arrangement too. This one would make rebels like Peter, Paul, & Mary proud.
 

In all, dear Bobby readers, we enjoyed the latest album by the Kinsey Sicks, but in this case, it was not as near the experience of being in the room with this group as one hopes for from a live concert recording. Those talkie bits we talked about feel truncated, and the audience feels at a distance from us and the show - something that might have been avoided by mic’ing the room, as well as the ladies. In any case, the songs range from fun to clever to hilarious and might well have stood up on their own without the inclusion of any script. Is the album worth streaming? You bet it is. Did we laugh? Sure … enough to give The Kinsey Sicks- DRAGQUEEN STORYTIME GONE WILD

A Respectable 3 1/2 Out Of 5 Rainbows

Wade Into The Amazon And Give This One A Listen: HERE

Or

Put It In Your Spotifies: HERE

You Can See And Hear Everything About The Kinsey Sicks On The Webbysite: HERE

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