Parry Gripp: Do You Like Waffles?

It makes sense that the singer of Nerf Herder, a band best known for singing about other bands (“Van Halen”), would strike out on his own with ditties strictly about consumer goods. Parry Gripp’s 2005 collection of unused advertising music entitled For Those About To Shop, We Salute You was a real hoot; Do You Like Waffles?, his food-centric follow-up is just as much fun. Gripp adopts all sorts of personas to sing about generic eats, including early Twentieth Century crooner (“Say Hello To Your Brand New Favorite Pizza”), rough-and-tumble cowpoke (“English Muffin”), and worst Clash cover band in the world (the astonishing “Pizza Bagel,” in which Parry shouts, “Pizza’s burning!” over the ringing opening chords).

Overall, the vibe of Waffles is very They Might Be Giants, which some may construe to be a bad thing. It isn’t. “Melvin the Magic Hot Dog” should be a real cartoon — the fake theme Gripp has whipped up here is undeniable pop bliss. If more musicians were this candid about their quest for commercial fortune while doing as little as possible, there’d be a lot less crappy love songs on the radio. The only drawback: many of these songs can already be found on For Those About To Shop. Buyer beware.