Track Listing

1. Yo Cousin Vinny
2. Wise Guy
3. Take Your Love and Shove It
4. I've Got News for You
5. How Do You Like Me So Far
6. Robbie Hood
7. Twenty-One
8. Old Man Time
9. He'll Have to Go
10. I Can't Give You Anything But Love
11. If It Doesn't Snow for Christmas
12. What a Wonderful World
13. Yo Cousin Vinny [Italian][*]
14. Yo Cousin Vinny [Spanish][*]

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #141307 in Music
• Released on: 1998-10-13
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Explicit Lyrics

Amazon.com
Your eyes do not deceive you--that is indeed the actor Joe Pesci on the cover of this album of "songs," which includes one celebrity "rap." In the annals of celebrity musical undertakings, Pesci's disc does not approach the sublimely horrible work of, say, William Shatner. And the disc is intended to be humorous, as Pesci revisits the character Vincent LaGuardia Gambini from the Oscar-winning hit My Cousin Vinny. Fans of that film and of Pesci's wise-guy character acting will no doubt look beyond the disc's major faults and just enjoy it as a good laugh. It does bear noting, however, that the guy has no business even pretending to sing (let alone rap); he's more in love with words like "bitch" and "fuck" than a hyperactive delinquent 13-year-old, and the lounge- and swing-inspired music is uninspired hack work. There is a cleaned-up version of the disc, but it's hard to imagine there being much left after the edits. --Mike McGonigal

Entertainment Weekly
Pesci, who was a lounge singer before he was an actor, cracks and croons profane and hilarious.

Customer Reviews

Rising above the Shatnerian depths of celebrity albums
When I first saw this on the shelves, I thought to myself, "oh no, not ANOTHER album by some movie/TV celebrity who thinks he has singing ability!" If it isn't a Star Trek alum (Shatner, Nimoy, Nichelle 'Uhura' Nichols, Brent 'Data' Spiner, and Tim 'Tuvok' Russ) manglin' the hits, it's some sports figure (Iverson, Shaq, Deion, et al) rappin' it up. But, after borrowing Joe Pesci's 'Vincent LaGuardia Gambini' CD from a former co-worker, I was in for a pleasant surprise: I discovered the guy who answers half of George Carlin's prayers isn't all that bad when it comes to musical talent!

Joe Pesci combines the qualities of his notable mob characters from 'GoodFellas' and 'Casino', and throws in a bit of his comedic personas from 'The Super', 'My Cousin Vinny', and the 'Lethal Weapon' flicks into a reasonable and delightfully profane lounge act. I dare say Joe may provide a real challenge against Howard Stern's Losers in a battle of the bands competition!

The big highlights of this album include 'Yo Cousin Vinny', which features a little bit of old-country Italy charm mixed with the average Joe's (Doh!) gripes about his ne'er-do-well relatives always hittin' him up for favors. Pesci even takes a crack at this tune in Italian and Spanish! 'Wise Guy' is his somewhat mellow effort at rap, which recounts a day in the life of a mob hood. 'Take Your Love And Shove It', with its fast-paced jazz beat, is about as far away from low key & touchy-feely as a breakup song can get. Joe gets his wiseguy blues on in 'I've Got News For You'. The Ballad of 'Robbie Hood' puts a modern & subversive spin on the classic tale of wealth redistribution. Oh yeah, let's not forget a cut to celebrate the yuletide. This is where 'If It Doesn't Snow For Christmas' comes in. One can just imagine Burl Ives turnin' in his grave with this tune! And what is a celebrity album without a badly-mangled cover? Hence 'What a Wonderful World'. The weird part is, he doesn't use the word 'wonderful' in the song at all!

I'm glad Mr. Pesci showed some restraint when he recorded this- he refrained from using the f-word on two of his songs! If that ain't holdin' back a bit, I don't know what is...!

Little Joe sure can sing!
This is actually Joe Pesci's second album. His hard to find first album came out in 1968 and consisted mostly of covers of Beatles and Bee Gees songs (I actually have a copy of it). Thirty years later, he released this second album. It is ostensibly performed as the character he played in My Cousin Vinny, but some of the songs don't seem to be performed by Vinny. For example, in the song "Wise Guy", he refers to himself as "Pesci". Anyway, most of the songs here are played for laughs, but some of them are done more or less seriously. The songs that are played for laughs are fairly amusing, although most of laughs come from hearing Joe sing vulgarities. As for the serious songs, they are fairly decent, but Joe is no Tony Bennett. But I will admit that this album is better than most albums recorded by actors.

Better than a novelty...
A lot of reviewers ignore or dismiss a truth in this disc: Pesci's not a bad jazz singer. While it's pretty obvious that most of the songs on this disc are clearly intended to go straight to the hands of Dr. Demento ("Take Your Love and Shove It" is justly praised as the Single Man's Lament), some, like the sublime "How Do You Like Me, So Far" have a smooth smokiness that cries out for a bourbon and soda. I'd be perfectly happy to hear Pesci follow it up, this time freed from all expectations of camp. Pretty decent.