Music / Bloodhound Gang

aka: The Bloodhound Gang

No reason to live, but we like it that way.

"Like my scrotum, here it is in a nutshell!"

Influences:

• Howard Stern, Beastie Boys, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Depeche Mode

The Bloodhound Gang is an Alternative Rock band formed in 1991 in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania (a western suburb of Philadelphia).

The band originated when all but two of the members of a Pennsylvania Synth-Pop group called Bang Chamber 8 (heavily influenced by Depeche Mode) decided to quit, and the remaining two members, Jimmy Pop (James Franks) and Daddy Long Legs (Michael Bowe), decided to rebrand themselves as a Hip-Hop duo with a heavy emphasis on humor that was often scatalogical or politically incorrect. Bowe quit after the band's debut LP to form the Rap Metal group Wolfpac, which would ultimately end up a very poor decision, as Bloodhound Gang's popularity exploded after Bowe left, while Wolfpac didn't do nearly as well.

Franks is the only consistent member in the Bloodhound Gang's 20 year career. As such, their style tends to be a little all-over-the-map, but it's tied together by their lyrics. Usually considered more of a comedy band than anything, the Bloodhound Gang specialize in off-color humor, dick jokes and many, many, many puns.

After a series of demos just consisting of the original two core members and a DJ, the Bloodhound Gang gradually added musicians to the group, and their debut LP, Use Your Fingers, while primarily Hip-Hop (heavily influenced by Beastie Boys and Howard Stern), also included a couple of Punk Rock tracks. The subsequent LP's, One Fierce Beer Coaster and Hooray for Boobies, featured a more eclectic approach, drawing from genres such as Punk, Electronic Music and Rap Rock, with the latter album containing the Synth-Pop Meets Rap Rock hit "The Bad Touch" (which was paraphrased by Eminem on "The Real Slim Shady"). The band's subsequent releases saw the band gradually distancing itself from Rap Rock, which had gone out of favor by that point, with Hefty Fine containing very little rapping and Hard-Off featuring no rapping.

Following some controversial on-stage antics during a performance in Ukraine, the band appeared to break up in 2013 (though they still finished and released one more album two years later). Bassist "Evil" Jarred Hasselhoff was quoted as saying "If the Bloodhound Gang still exist, yes, I'm still a member." However, in 2023, in response to a fan's question, Jimmy Pop stated that Bloodhound Gang had never broken up and that he had been actively working on new music for several years, and at the same time hinted that his solo project is possible.

Discography:

• Dingleberry Haze EP (1994)
• Use Your Fingers (1995)
• One Fierce Beer Coaster (1996)
• Hooray For Boobies (1999)
• Hefty Fine (2005)
• Hard-Off (2015)

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The Bloodhound Gang shows examples of:

• LOL, 69: The "Dirk Ramrod Show" from the "I Wish I Was Queer So I Could Get Chicks" video airs on Public-access Channel 69.
• Album Title Drop: The hidden track from Hooray For Boobies sees two opera singers do just that (in between attacks of invokedhysterical laughter).
• Alternative Rock: They are predominantly associated with this genre, despite covering many other genres throughout their career (see below), because of the difficulty of categorizing them.
• Antichrist: According to "Fire Water Burn", Webster star, Emmanuel Lewis is the Anti-Christ.
• Ballad of X: "The Ballad of Chasey Lain". Subverted as it's not so much a "ballad" as it is a mid-tempo alt-rock song about a Chasey Lain stalker who (in one interpretation) eventually kidnaps her.
• Boastful Rap:
  • "The Inevitable Return Of The Great White Dope" is a great example of Jimmy Pop's unique talents in this field.
  • Completely averted in many, many of their self-deprecating songs.
• Brainless Beauty:
  • This bit from "I Wish I Was Queer So I Could Get Chicks":
    Cause 'super model' means voluptuous but is also is synonymous with 'Super dumb'
  • "She was hotter than the sun, but she just wasn't that bright" from "Three Point One Four".
• Break-Up Song: "No Hard Feelings" is pretty cold. It's more like a "burn bridges after the breakup" song.
  If I want to be repeatedly shit on
  I'll go make Dutch porn
• Bowdlerize: Hooray For Boobies has a censored version simply titled Hooray, and the only image on the cover is that of the cow udders.
• Brick Joke: "I Hope You Die" gets a great one in.
  I hope you flip some guy the bird
  He cuts you off and you're forced to swerve
  In front of the Beatles' tour bus,
  A Bookmobile and a Mack truck...
  • It goes downhill from there. And sure enough, in the last verse...
    And when you finally regain consciousness
    You're bound and gagged in a wedding dress
    And the prison guard looks the other way —
    Cause he's the guy you flipped the bird the other day
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Part of their appeal was that they were an otherwise "normal" Rap Rock band who just happened to do joke songs, due in large part to Jimmy Pop's legitimate skills as both a lyricist and a rapper.
• The Cameo:
  • "Rip Taylor Is God" is simply an opening monologue by Rip Taylor himself, cracking corny jokes and invokedadmitting he was paid to be there.
  • "R.S.V.P." comes right after "The Ballad Of Chasey Lain", where Chasey herself offers a rebuttal to the propositions in the previous song.
• Casanova Wannabe: Jimmy Pop's persona on "The Bad Touch," "Unn Tiss Unn Tiss Unn Tiss" and "Clean Up In Aisle Sexy" is that of a guy who has no doubt whatsoever in his own sexiness and genuinely believes that his awful, awful sex puns are the epitome of charm.
• Celebrities Hang Out in Heaven: Inverted: in "Fire Water Burn" he says that if he goes to Hell, he'll spend his days with J.F.K., Marvin Gaye, Martha Raye, Lawrence Welk and Emmanuel Lewis.
• Censored Title: Hooray for Boobies had the censored version Hooray, where the cover was reduced to only one image of the tit-related montage (a cow's udders).
• Cover Version:
  • They revived Run–D.M.C.'s "It's Tricky" in a Rap Metal style.
  • They also did a Punk Rock version of "Along Comes Mary" by The Association.
  • And they vastly improved "Weekend" by Scooter.
  • They also covered the theme song for Kids Incorporated in a Punk Rock theme on Use Your Fingers, the same album that saw a similar rendition of Kim Wilde's "Kids In America."
• Deadpan Snarker: Jimmy Pop, who barely changes his tone while snarking at anything, including himself.
• The Dinnermobile: In the music video for "Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo" Bam Margera drives a car in the shape of a banana into a tunnel. In the video for "Ralph Wiggum" (a found-lyrics song consisting of Ralph Wiggum quotes), the lyrics "Go Banana" cut to that clip in self-reference.
• Did I Just Say That Out Loud?: In "A Lap Dance Is So Much Better When The Stripper Is Crying", Jimmy says "I never thought that missing children could be so sexy". He then pauses and says, "Did I say that out loud?".
• Distracted by the Sexy: The video for "The Ballad Of Chasey Lain" subverts it, as the ending is Jimmy Pop complaining on a distraction - not the all-female, all-naked film crew, but a really disgusting man.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: The video for "Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo". All over the place.
• Double Entendre: Some of their lyrics may as well be single entendres.
• Do You Want to Copulate?: "The Bad Touch" has this as its main premise. As they both are mammals, the absolute logical thing to do is getting it on ("So show me yours I'll show you mine 'Tool Time', you'll love it just like Lyle and then we'll do it doggie style so we can both watch X-Files"). Always remember that "we call this the act of mating, but there are several other very important differences between human beings and animals that you should know about"
  "You and me baby ain't nothin' but mammals
  So let's do it like they do on the Discovery Channel."
• Driven to Suicide: Never mind hiding the message, they flat-out encourage you to kill yourself in "Lift Your Head Up High And Blow Your Brains Out".
• Drugs Are Bad: In "Mope", Jimmy says this verbatim to Pac-Man after Pac-Man asks if he wants to freebase some crack.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: "Why's Everybody Always Pickin' On Me?"
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Their demos and first album featured two vocalists (Jimmy Pop along with Daddy Long Legs). Also, most of their backup music was sample based rather than performed by a live band.
• Equal-Opportunity Offender: The band's purpose is to "hurt everyone's feelings; it makes us feel better about ourselves." Not surprisingly, Jimmy Pop cites Howard Stern as a major influence.
• Face on the Cover: The montage in the cover of Hooray for Boobies includes the bandmembers in party hats.
• Fag Hag: "I Wish I Was Queer So I Could Get Chicks":
  But if I was a queerbee in the fashion industry
  Scoring with a super model would be easy
  (...)
  Ya see I'd be a good listener so she'd treat me like a sister and soon I'd become
  That trusted friend that cares that rubs her back and braids her hair
  No, it wouldn't be a week before I'm in her underwear!
• Fan Disservice: The covers of Hefty Fine and the appropriately-named Hard-Off.
• Finger on Lips: "Fire Water Burn" is an interesting example. In the video, when you hear Jimmy Pop sing "Burn, motherfucker, burn," the video shows him making a strained face instead of pronouncing "fucker." In the censored version of the song, "fucker" is replaced with a donkey's bray.
• Fun with Acronyms: "Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo."
• Genre Roulette: Aside from the mostly Hip-Hop effort Use Your Fingers, Bloodhound Gang albums have no consistent style throughout. The subsequent two albums have a mix of Rap Rock, Punk, Hip Hop and Electronic, and their most recent albums have more of a Electronic Rock style, with the only consistent thoroughline between their recordings being a lot of Toilet Humor.
• Grapes of Luxury: In "Hell Yeah" he says if he were God, he'd have Norwegian lesbians feed him grapes.
• Greatest Hits Album: Show Us Your Hits, the cover of which (in typical Bloodhound Gang fashion) has a woman in the process of taking her top off. (she finishes off in the booklet's back cover, and it unfolds into a topless poster of her)
• Heävy Mëtal Ümlaut: Lüpüs Thünder, their long-running guitarist.
• Heteronormative Crusader: "My Dad Says That's For Pussies"
  • The "jarheads" in "I Wish I Was Queer", who kicked Jimmy's ass because his friend kissed him in Home Ec class (which doesn't indicate Jimmy himself wanted to be kissed).
• Hurricane of Euphemisms: "Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo", down to the Fun with Acronyms title.
• Hurricane of Puns: Any of their songs ("Times New Roman, you know the type!").
• I Am the Band: Starting with One Fierce Beer Coaster, Jimmy Pop wrote and produced most of the band songs and was the only consistent member from their formation to their breakup.
• Insane Troll Logic: "I Wish I Was Queer So I Could Get Chicks" again. It's kind of right there in the title, but Jimmy elaborates on this concept in the lyrics, never really catching on to the fact that if he was the gay guy he wants to be, he'd obviously have no need for chicks. This is obviously Played for Laughs, but then, so is all their music.
• Intercourse with You: Their dance songs are infamous for this, notably "The Bad Touch." "3.14" includes the immortal line "You know what I really want in a girl? Me."
• Jaywalking Will Ruin Your Life: "I Hope You Die." Flipping someone off while driving will set off a series of Disaster Dominoes that will end with you getting sodomized and tortured in prison.
• Joisey: They are not fans.^note The song "The Ten Coolest Things About New Jersey" is just ten seconds of silence.
• Least Rhymable Word: In "Three Point One Four", Jimmy Pop struggles to rhyme a word with "vagina":
  It's hard to rhyme a word like vagina
  Calvin Klein, kind of, North Carolina
• Limited Lyrics Song: "Farting With A Walkman On," which consists of a single verse repeated four times.
• List Song: "Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo"
• Listing Cities: "Going Nowhere Slow," until the addendum: "But nowhere in New Jersey, that's the only place we won't go!"
• Loony Fan: "The Ballad of Chasey Lain", about a fan of said porn star who eventually kidnaps her as she doesn't reply to his letter.
• Madness Mantra: "THE DRUMMER FROM DEF LEPPARD'S ONLY GOT ONE ARM!!" is screamed several times on "Why's Everybody Always Picking On Me?" It's as weird as it sounds.
• Motor Mouth: Jimmy Pop is capable of some serious tongue-twisters.
• Non-Appearing Title: "The Bad Touch", "Mope"
• Parody: "A Lap Dance Is So Much Better When the Stripper Is Crying" is a parody of the narratives usually found in Red Sovine's "sad trucker songs".
• Prison Rape / Black Comedy Rape: From "I Hope You Die":
  I hope he grins like Jack Nicholson
  And forces you to play a game called "Balls On Chin"
  And whatever happens next is all a blur
  But you remember "fist" can be a verb...
• Punny Name: The clip for "Why's Everybody Always Pickin' On Me?" features Dr. Scott P. Nussenvy & Ivana Getchuharde (prom queen of Wannagett High School, whose baseball team is the Wannagett Beavers).
• Raging Stiffie: This part from "A Lap Dance Is So Much Better When The Stripper Is Crying":
  And then she told me to shush. I guess she could sense my desperation.
  'Course, it's hard to hide a hard-on when you're dressed like Minnie Pearl.
• Rearrange the Song: "The Roof Is On Fire" by Rock Master Scott & The Dynamic Three gets reworked into a guitar ballad called "Fire Water Burn".
• Refuge in Audacity: And how! Nothing is off limits in their music, including disabilities, the gay community, incest and jailbait.
• Sampling: These guys make extensive use of samples, and their debut album was almost entirely made up of them.
  • "Mope" in particular squeezes in Falco, Metallica, Pac-Man, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, and The Simpsons in one big ridiculous package.
• Self-Deprecation: Jimmy Pop aims to offend everyone, including himself.
  • From the intro to "Your Only Friends Are Make Believe."
    "Yeah, well, I sing like an amputee, though."
    "Why?"
    "Cuz... can't hold a note. Can't carry a tune."
  • The first verse of "Fire Water Burn" opens with "Hello my name is Jimmy Pop and I'm a dumb white guy".
  • The back cover of Use Your Fingers has the credit "Produced by Jimmy Pop and Daddy Long Legs (because we couldn't afford a real producer)".
  • Their Spotify bio consists of exactly one sentence.
    "I love reading a bio about how great an artist is and then seeing that they posted it."
  • Their online fanclub (ran by their then-guitarist Lüpüs Thünder) was literally called Hate Club.
• Shirtless Scene: Parodied in the video for "Screwing You On The Beach At Night," where a shirtless Jimmy Pop makes a babbling idiot of himself trying to woo a hot girl.
• Shout-Out:
  • The band's name was taken from the PBS show 3-2-1 Contact.
  • The video for "Hell Yeah" is a homage to They Live!, except the aliens are replaced with Bikini Babes and the conformity messages replaced with instructions to party down.
  • The second verse of "Fire Water Burn" includes a reference to Pixies frontman Frank Black, followed by a paraphrase of one of the lyrics from their song "Monkey Gone To Heaven".
    "This hardcore ghetto gangster image
    Takes a lot of practice
    I'm not black like Barry White
    No, I am white like Frank Black is
    So if man is five, and the devil is six
    Then that must make me seven.
    This honky's gone to heaven."
  • "The Bad Touch" references Battleship, Coca-Cola, Daylight Savings Time, the Discovery Channel, FedEx, Home Improvement, Lyle Lovett, Mr. Coffee, Prince, Siskel & Ebert, Tool Time, Waffle House, and The X-Files.
  • The opening skit to Hefty Fine, "Strictly For the Tardcore", references Eminem's "The Real Slim Shady" (which, in turn, included a reference to "The Bad Touch").
    Eminem's gotta cuss in his raps to sell records! Well, me too! So fuck Will Smith!
  • "Altogether Ooky" is named after a line from the theme song of The Addams Family. It also features the lyric "I rub the lotion on my skin/Or else I get the hose again".
• Stealth Pun:
  • "You must be done with hair plugs, because now you're goin' to pay."
  • One Fierce Beer Coaster ends with "Reflections of Remoh", where Jimmy Pop explains the album title while imitating Homer Simpson.
• Shown Their Work: In the liner notes, "Ralph Wiggum"'s credits list the writers of each Simpsons episode the band quoted as co-authors.
• Suicide Dare: "Lift Your Head Up High (And Blow Your Brains Out)." In the pre-chorus they even offer hanging yourself as an alternative.
• Suicide Is Painless: "Lift Your Head Up High And Blow Your Brains Out," again.
• Take That!:
  • From "Lift Your Head Up High And Blow Your Brains Out", mostly a list of reasons to kill yourself.
    "Did you like the movie Malcolm X?"
    "Were you born and raised in New Jersey?"
  • The song "The Ten Coolest Things About New Jersey", which consists of ten seconds of absolute silence.
  • "Your Only Friends Are Make Believe" is a song picking on Mister Rogers.
• Take That, Audience!:
  • The CD of Use Your Fingers has the message "What's stupid, smelly, boring and likes the Bloodhound Gang? (See reverse side for details)".
  • "Shut Up," which is directed at... well, everything that moves.
• Take That, Critics!: "I hate Spin Magazine, 'cause they never ever plug me." (once Spin featured the band, Jimmy Pop joked he might have to trade it with Time).
• Three Minutes of Writhing: The video for "Screwing You On The Beach At Night," although the bikini girl's antics are completely offset by Jimmy Pop being... well, Jimmy Pop. The video is actually a parody of the infamous "Wicked Game" video by Chris Isaak.
• Toilet Humor: A staple of their work.
  • "Diarrhea Runs In The Family," a 20 second telephone message of the sounds of a bowel movement.
    "I'm in the bathroom, so this is probably going to sound like shit."
  • Subverted in the video for "Uhn Tiss Uhn Tiss Uhn Tiss," which is set almost entirely in the bathroom of a high-end club but features no on-screen or even implied bodily function jokes.
  • During their 2006 tour of the Netherlands, the band members would regularly mime giving a golden shower during their cover of Depeche Mode's "Enjoy The Silence."
  • Sadly, this tendency is what indirectly led to the band breaking up. The Ukrainian and Russian governments did not particularly care for Evil Jared peeing on and wiping his ass with their respective flags during their 2013 tour of the Ukraine, which got the Russian leg of their tour canceled and their visas revoked after legal threats for indecency.
• Unusual Euphemism: The lyrics to "Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo" are mostly a string of... inventive euphemisms for penetration.
• Uranus Is Showing: In "Fire Water Burn":
  I am hung like planet Pluto, hard to see with the naked eye
  But if I crashed into Uranus I would stick it where the sun don't shine.
• Voice Clip Song: "Ralph Wiggum" is made up entirely of Ralph Wiggum quotes (sung by Jimmy Pop rather than sampled directly from the show). And one Chief Wiggum quote. And Yvan eht nioj!
• Vulgar Humor: Along with Toilet Humor, their songs contain pretty much every variation of this. For instance, the labels for the ''Hooray for Boobies'' vinyl.◊
• "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: At the end of the "Why's Everybody Always Picking On Me?" video clip:
  Jimmy's former pals went on to suffer from chronic hemorrhoids. Lucky for them, Jimmy went on to become a successful proctologist.
• Wildlife Commentary Spoof: "The Bad Touch" begins with a sample from one such commentary, discussing "the act of mating."^note  sampled from a children's sex-ed record narrated by none other than Art Linkletter.

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"This is Bam, and Hidden Track shit dicks out."