As a change of pace from their usual esoteric, literate lyrics, Jimmy Kimmel suggested that the Decemberists record an album entirely of YouTube comments set to music. The results are hilarious.
The topics that the band second-hand-mused upon cover everything from pandas playing on a slide (“Yeah cute now but they’ll eat your ass if they’re hungry enough”) to President Obama’s 2015 State of the Union (“First”). Even writing them down doesn’t do them justice compared to when you hear Colin Meloy sing these asinine comments in his beautiful baritone.
As Paste initially reported, the Decemberist are appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live to promote their newly released album What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World, which came out January 20th.
Prior to this, the band had released two videos to prime fans for the album’s eventual release. The first was another comedic endeavor, “Make You Better” that starred Nick Offerman as a zany talk show host. In stark contrast, the band also released a straigh-forward music video for the more somber “Lake Song,” which featured nothing more than the band playing their instruments as the lyrics appeared on screen. Right before the holiday season, they released “The Wrong Year,” which combined the two previous track’s strengths–sounding like a more pastoral take on Tom Petty.
The band has taken to the road recently, announcing Winter and Spring 2015 tour dates across several European and U.S. cities. Likewise, the band has also been slated for New York’s Governor’s Ball this June.
Watch the hilarious video below.