Then, still playing it for laughs, got a TV show? And released an album? And toured? And released another album that tied in with a feature-length movie? And played festivals? And, after a considerable pause, released a third album? Please, Messrs Black and Gass, stop. That joke isn't funny any more.
The problem with Tenacious D – and particularly their new Rize Of The Fenix release – is that Jack Black and Kyle Gass have always been caught between satirising rock pomposity and indulging in playground smut, between writing great rock riffs of their own and pastiching the genre's most glaring musical cliches. It's as if they don't quite trust themselves to play it straight, so head instead for the bleedin' obvious and present it with a knowing wink and schoolboy sneer.
With nowhere else to go, Black and Gass now seem content to simply do it all over again, but with the crude knob turned up to 11 – a sad state of affairs that's immediately evident in the cover-art that reimagines the titular bird as a set of throbbing genitals. Musically, it's dull (fast acoustic strum followed by brief metal caricatures); comedically, it's a non-starter (spoken skits that ramble on and on, self-reflective lyrics whose single entendres render Spinal Tap more literary than Leonard Cohen).
Swedish trio Niki & The Dove were, arguably, the best thing at the top end of the BBC's Sound of 2012 list. Maybe it's that Scandinavian electro thing, but they've certainly got the edge over those Little Boots/La Roux picks of years past. Like Bjork fed through a chart-friendly filter, Malin Dahlstrom's voice emerges with quirks intact, supported by tight, stripped-back beats, funky keyboard noodles and cushions of 1980s' synths. It doesn't matter whether their album, Instinct, exists at the art end of pop or the pop end of art: it's a debut that stands up to that early flutter of hype.
Zulu Winter, on the other hand, make nice but ultimately unmemorable music They've just been announced as tour support to Keane and that's quite fitting: their debut album, Language, can soundtrack warm-up beers but contains nothing to suggest the band deserve headline status themselves. Even though it's well produced in a very 1980s' way, too many tracks drag their heels, with synth-backed choruses that are big but never quite big enough. If you buy into Hurts you might buy into this, but to my ears Zulu Winter – precise but calculated – are the industry's idea of what a retro band should sound like.
There's something of the recent past about Beach House too. But on the American duo's fourth album, Bloom, it's locked into the excess reverb on Victoria Legrand's vocals, the cascading guitar on Myth, the sequencer underpinning Lazuli. Tracks rise and swell as layer is laid upon layer, revelling in delicious melodies. Here's a band who recognise the secret ingredient that separates those who create great pop music from those who only recognise the poses.
