Single Of The Week is where I review a single I'm particularly enamoured of at the moment. It might be a brand spanking new release, or a classic from decades past that I just feel like going on about.

Simultaneous Chef 667230 2

They're definitely running late with this one. 'Simultaneous', from the South Park: Chef Aid album, was rush-released in the UK earlier this year, following the perhaps mildly unexpected success of Chef's previous single, the post-Xmas #1 'Chocolate Salty Balls'. However, it hasn't appeared in Australian record shops until this week. Presumably Columbia is hoping to cash in on the entirely expected success of the soundtrack for South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, which they don't have the rights to, and which doesn't really sport any obvious singles, since the cast titles are all highly tied into the movie plot and the cover versions are, with the exception of the Violent Femmes 'I Swear It (I Can Change)' and DVDA's 'What Would Brian Boitano Do? Part II', quite literally unlistenable. (And the second one, performed South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone's band, doesn't exactly count as a cover anyway.)

Anyhoo, since I (obviously) own both the SP soundtrack albums, the attraction of this single was the four non-album B-sides. However, these would have to qualify as the shortest collection of B-sides this side of the Ramones. 'Cheesy Poofs' runs for 0:18. 'Come Sail Away' (the high-speed original, not the concert version) clocks up 0:56. 'My Best Friends Song' registers at 0:20. And 'Stinky Britches' (as performed by Chef, not Alanis Morissette) goes for 0:21. All are lifted more or less unedited from the original TV episodes.

Points are subtracted for spelling 'Stinky' as 'Sticky' on the back cover. However, for any mild South Park junkie, this is still a handy purchase.

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