Matthew Kelly
1001 Albums You Must Die Before You Hear
#101: Macho Man Randy Savage – Be A Man (2003)
MATT KELLY loves records by washed-up wrestlers but Randy Savage’s attempt to musically spar with Hulk Hogan is an unmitigated disaster.
If you’ve ever wanted to hear Snuffleupagus from Sesame Street try his hand at making a Lil’ Jon record, have I got the album for you.
Even amongst the extremely colourful cast of characters that constituted the classic ’80s/’90s World Wrestling Federation lineup, Randall “Macho Man Savage” Poffo stood out with his peculiar mix of flamboyance and masculinity. Intensely dedicated to the bit, Savage’s outrageous dress sense, gruff cartoonish voice and, lest we forget, genuine wrestling ability made him a favourite with fans. Come 2003 though, Savage was 51 and his days headlining wrestling events were over. But he noticed that the last few compilations of WWF music had all gone Top 10 and reached Platinum status. Plus that chump Hulk Hogan put out a terrible album and it still hit #12, and making a hit CD would be a great opportunity for Savage to show up his rival.
Realizing that club rap was the sound of the time, Savage teamed up with Big3 Records and their production team Da Raskulls to fix him up with a selection of hot ‘n’ fresh beats over which he could sound like a constipated grandpa reading the lyrics off his phone for the first time.
It’s all so generic, nearly every track sounding the same, Macho crapping on about being awesome and a tough guy and partying hard over big brash identikit beats with indistinguishable synths and electric guitar samples. Macho never changes his flow and sticks almost exclusively to one/two-syllable rhymes at the end of every line, making this a 46-minute endurance test. You might hope the hooks will save you from the monotony but some of them are even worse. The chorus for ‘Feel The Madness’ stands out as a shocker, an unlistenable screech which sounds like Marilyn Manson has sat on a red hot poker.
Wrestling fans will no doubt be keen to hear the title track, a diss of Hulk Hogan where Savage casts aspersions on Hogan’s masculinity and sexuality, which is pretty funny given that on the album’s artwork Savage looks like he’s on his way to a downstairs nightclub called Man2Man. Yet I have to say Hogan won this round – both albums are crap but Hulk Rules had more laughs and personality thanks to memorable screamers like ‘I Wanna Be A Hulkamaniac’ and ‘Beach Patrol’.
This just keeps plodding through grey, samey nothings like ‘Get Back’. Though oddly, just like Hulk Rules did, Be A Man ends with a tribute to a fallen friend. This time it’s WWF star Curt “Mr Perfect” Hennig, a close mate of Savage’s outside of the ring who died from cocaine abuse as Savage was working on the album. ‘Perfect Friend’ isn’t Leonard Cohen or anything but the track’s more sincere nature helps it stand out from the inane posturing on the rest of the record.
Sadly, Savage didn’t have that long to go himself, passing away in 2011 from a heart attack suffered behind the wheel. Be A Man may be ludicrous but it’s that combination of the ridiculous with the macho that made Savage such a memorable personality.
RIP Randall Mario Poffo 1952-2011.
