POP ALBUM REVIEW : ‘The Simpsons’ Gets Down and Dirty With the Blues

Wouldn’t you know it. Even the whitest of white, middle-class, middle-American families--TV’s the Simpsons--has aspirations toward affecting the trappings of African-American pop culture on its new album. Those bootleg T-shirts have proved prophetically true: “Black Bart,” indeed.

But when it comes to the current class of white poppers trying to be something they aren’t, give us the Simpsons over that Vanilla Ice dude any day, man. Bart has a more instinctive feel for rap rhythm and a cooler haircut.

“The Simpsons Sing the Blues” album (Geffen Records), due in stores today, mostly lives up to its promising title, with a slew of slick but indeed bluesy entreaties from animation’s first family of ungrateful grumblers and its guests, alongside the expected excursions into rap and rock. No, Robert Johnson wouldn’t be proud, but then, Robert Johnson never had to grow up in the suburbs.

This largely delightful album--which has unusual integrity and potential longevity for a spin-off marketing extravaganza--truly shows that two-dimensional people have mojos, too.

Beleaguered, balding dad Homer sings “Born Under a Bad Sign” accompanied by B.B. King’s guitar, with a few updated lyrics (“A big bag of pork rinds gonna carry me to my grave”); little Lisa croons a Midler-esque version of Billie Holiday’s “God Bless the Child,” from the child’s perspective.

Even those tracks that skirt the idiom have the requisite amount of moaning and whining. Bart’s version of Chuck Berry’s lament about “School Days” (a duet with Buster Poindexter) certainly counts, as does his woeful rap about getting into “Deep, Deep Trouble” (written by D.J. Jazzy Jeff and series creator Matt Groening).

Funniest of all is “Look at All Those Idiots,” in which Harry Shearer (the voice of most of the series’ minor characters) plays both Homer’s tyrannical boss, Mr. Burns, and sycophantic toad Smithers. Burns’ blues: “They make personal phone calls on company time / They Xerox their buttockses, and guess who pays the dime!”

The only cut likely to grate on grown-up fans is the opening “Do the Bartman,” an attempt to create a Bart-related dance craze that’s mighty close to witless for five long minutes. An unusually lame entry on an otherwise charming LP, “Bartman” is the first single and a likely novelty hit among kids, so brace yourself for a few months’ worth of it. Man.