An interview with John Boylan,
producer of 'The Yellow Album'

Part Two: Putting the album together
Q: Are there special challenges in recording an album in which people are singing in cartoon voices?

John Boylan: Yes. Obviously, it's extremely difficult to do. (Laughs) Most regular singers have trouble singing in the best voice they can put on. I mean, I don't understand how Danny Castellaneta does it, the guy who does Homer's voice. He's an excellent singer. But when you put that Homer voice on, you know, you're constricting your instrument a lot, doing weird things with it, and yet he still pulled off that amazing harmony with Linda (Ronstadt) on "Funny How Time Slips Away."

And Lisa, too. Yeardley Smith, a wonderful singer, and doing it in the Lisa voice -- whoa. It's very difficult to do, and the cast all did great. Keeping the character and hitting all the notes is very difficult to do.

Hank (Azaria) and Harry (Shearer) were great with the character voices. Between the two of them, they do a ton of voices. I mean, Hank does Moe the bartender as well as Apu.

Q: Once you recorded this album five or six years ago, did it basically sit there, or did you over the years kind of tweak it a bit?

John Boylan: I never touched it. I never touched my stuff. I'm not sure if any of the other producers may have fiddled with it. C&C did not. I didn't touch anything.

Q: I read in some reviews complaining a bit that it does sound like something from 1993?

John Boylan: Bingo. That just proves their ears work. "It is something from 1993" -- well done, fellas. Gold prize. Obviously, if we had our druthers, I would have put it out then. Then it would have been current. With further druthers, it wouldn't have hurt to do some more (songs in 1998). But neither the time nor availability was there.

Q: Is there the possibility of doing a third Simpsons album along the lines of these two?

John Boylan: I don't think it's in the works at all. You know, as to the possibility, the Gracie (Films) people could tell you a lot more. They're in complete control.

Q: So you don't have a secret stash of songs?

John Boylan: I have none. I mean, I demo-ed a few things -- some of which I thought would have been really cool, but we didn't have time to finish them.

Q: What is the audience for this album?

John Boylan: Our core audience is (ages) 4 to about 13 for this.

Q: That was pretty much the same for the first one?

John Boylan: Yeah, although we got a lot more college kids at the beginning. Remember, when we put out the first one, they were putting out half a million Simpsons T-shirts every nanosecond. I mean, it was at the top of the zeitgeist. It's still a potent force in American culture, but not like it was back then.

Q: I haven't seen a music video yet for "The Yellow Album."

John Boylan: No, there won't be one.

Q: Was the title of "The Yellow Album" inspired by any other album?

John Boylan: It was the Beatles' "White Album." It's an obvious send-up. The Simpsons are yellow. It makes sense they would do a "Yellow Album." Then we decided to do a send-up of the (Beatles') "Sgt. Pepper" cover.

Q: Was that cover design -- which has been getting a lot of buzz, too -- was that something that came late in the process, or was it always part of the plan?

John Boylan: It did not come late in the process. I don't know if it was originally there, but it came early and we started working on it right away, because the cover of these things are more difficult that other covers, because you have to round up the artists who are extremely busy.

In fact, Simpsons people availability was my difficult logistics problem, because the show is so successful, they're all so busy.

Next: A close look at the album cuts.

Copyright 1999, William LaRue.

Updated: 10/16/99