Welcome to the Dark Carnival's Tunnel of Love. Allow your emotions to run wild.
Tunnel of Love is a 1996 extended play by the Hip-Hop act Insane Clown Posse. Like their previous releases, it follows a concept and is considered a "sideshow attraction" intended to supplement the main Joker's Cards albums, themed around the amusement park attraction. It was released independently on Psychopathic Records in-between the duo leaving Jive Records and signing with Hollywood Records.The album was also released in a variant edition with Sexy Packaging sold only to 18+ consumers, which contained a bonus track called "Mental Warp".
Track listing
- "Intro" 1:20
- "Cotton Candy" 4:35
- "Super Balls" (featuring Legz Diamond) 5:31
- "Ninja" 5:50
- "Stomp" 2:48
- "Prom Queen" 5:31
- "My Kind of Bitch" 4:45
- "When I Get Out" 4:51
- "
Mental Warp" (Sexy Packaging Bonus Track) 4:29
Tropes of Love:
- Arc Words: "Super Balls" is the song where the Juggalo greeting "Whoop whoop!" originated from.
- Call-Back: "I say STOMP, you say WHOOP WHOOP!"
- Dirty Rap: "Cotton Candy" is about oral sex. "Super Balls" is about a male superhero with large genitals whose primary superpower is macking any type of ho, regardless of how unattractive, fat or elderly they are.
- Hidden Track: The standard edition contains a Hidden Track containing clues to reveal the name of the fourth Joker's Cardnote
- Incompetence, Inc.: In what ICP later admitted was one of the biggest marketing mistakes Psychopathic Records ever made, ICP, their manager Alex Abbiss and label don Billy Bill drove around in a pink Tunnel of Love van with flowers on it. However, this promotional tactic proved to be incomprehensible to many people, who did not understand what the van was promoting, and onlookers yelled homophobic slurs at the drivers. After arguing occurred between the label heads, Billy Bill pulled the van over and removed the wrapping promoting the EP.
- I Love the Dead: "Prom Queen" has J murdering a girl and dancing with her corpse at his fake prom in his basement.
- Nightmare Fuel: "Mental Warp", the bonus track from the Sexy Packaging variant edition, is a very disturbing and surreal song which seems to be told from the point of view of a person who has slipped into a deep psychosis and just descends further and further into incoherence.Violent J: "Staring at the ceiling/The roof has a face/It's telling me I don't belong with the human race/He's asking me to join him in eternal sleep/I give him my soul/My body I can keep."
- Ninja: J wishes he could be one so he could fight back against the bullies that beat him up.
- Retroactive Recognition: That was Mike Patton of Faith No More and Mr. Bungle doing the prank phone call at the start of "Super Balls".
- Sampling: The intro to "Super Balls" samples "Music of the Night
", a track from anti-comedian Neil Hamburger's prank phone call album in which Mike Patton calls up a music teacher asking for "Sax Lessons". - Sexy Packaging: An alternate edition of the album featured a cover image that was stolen from a porno video tape cover, with the face of rapper Shaggy 2 Dope pasted onto the body of the male porn actor.
- Special Guest: Guitarist Legz Diamond of Coup Detroit raps one of the verses on "Super Balls".
