Crash Test Dummies - Ooh La La!

When Crash Test Dummies exploded in the early 1990s, there wasn’t a precedent for their brand of quirky, ironic pop—not in Canadian music. The Dummies, led by Brad Roberts—the guy with the impossibly deep voice—dealt cheerfully with matters of growing old, getting sick and dying. Oh, and God too. “I don’t think I’m a hypochondriac,” said Brad, who graduated from the University of Winnipeg with an honors degree in English and philosophy. “I just find illness and subjects like God and death fertile ground for songwriting. ”

    After topping the charts at home with “Superman’s Song,” a folky ballad about the death of a socially committed superhero, the Dummies experienced an international breakout with their album God Shuffled His Feet, which sold more than five million copies worldwide and produced the oddball hit “Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm.” The song, each verse of which documented a different child’s physical abnormality and isolation, reached #4 on the Billboard charts. The band has never matched that success, although Brad, long based in New York, has continued recording.

    Now Brad has released an adventurous new Dummies album, Ooh La La!, featuring 11 eccentric songs—all played on ’70s-era analog musical toys. “Paralyzed” is ’50s-style heartbroken ballad, while “What I’m Famous For” is a hilarious country-and-western ditty about a mean, beer-drinking squatter. Brad wisely brings back longtime associate Ellen Reid to sing on several numbers, including the gorgeous, string-laden “Put a Face,” proving once again that he’s really no dummy.