Actor/comedian Harry Shearer translates his gift for mimicry to the musical realm on Songs Pointed & Pointless. Most of the songs on the album were recorded for his radio program, “Le Show,” and he gives them the sonic trappings of the genre he is employing. The mournful lead guitar that solos on “Addicted to Oil” recalls the social ills soul of Gil Scott-Heron or Curtis Mayfield, and “Let the Flag Burners Fry (On the Fourth of July)” is a hayseed hoedown. He recorded “Waterboardin’ USA” and “American Guys on Mars” with Brian Wilson’s musical director Jeffrey Foskett to get the proper Beach Boys treatment.

 

As Spinal Tap demonstrated, song parodies have to work first as songs, and Shearer’s do, in no small part because he gets musicians who can play. George Porter, Jr., Raymond Weber, Shane Theriot, Shannon Powell and David Torkanowsky back him on a number of tracks including the “Hey Pocky-Way”-ish “Make New Orleans Whole,” a stab at the weak federal response to Katrina’s flooding.

 

In ways, Shearer’s songs are of a piece with the Christopher Guest movies he stars in. The attention to the genre—including its tone—is such that neither the movies nor songs go for the throat. Once Shearer inhabits a character, that character wants to be liked and Shearer plays him that way, even when it’s the president. That mutes the songs’ satirical impact, but it makes them more interesting for having a governing sensibility behind them.