Shatner's contributions, dramatic monologues set to florid music and rock songs performed with straightjacket intensity, are all taken from his legendary album "The Transformed Man." No one is safe from the shame of Canada: The hallowed words of Shakespeare, Lennon-McCartney and Bob Dylan are trampled and tortured in Shatner's patented overripe acting style, turned up to eleven. Shatner's anguished cry of "Mr. Tambourine Man!!!!" at the end of that song is so unexpected and frightening, it would kill a strolling minstrel dead in his tracks. I must confess, I'm a sucker for Shatner's histrionics, and I admire the chutzpa it took to be a performance artist of such...uniqueness. "It Was a Very Good Year," with Shatner exercising restraint (for him), actually achieves a certain elegance. It's my favorite burst of Shatnerian flatulence.

Nimoy was much more ambitious than Shatner, churning out a mind-boggling five albums of folk, country-western and soft rock covers. Saccharine ballads such as "Sunny" and "Put a Little Love in Your Heart" painfully expose the limitations of Nimoy's earnest baritone as he croons in keys that would make a stuffed dog howl. (Remember how Spock sounded in the throes of a Vulcan mind-meld with the Horta? Put that to music and you get the idea.) To be fair, some of his efforts are admirable. Nimoy's yearning vocal on "Where Is Love" is heart-rending, and he does a pretty fair imitation of Kenny Rogers on "Ruby Don't Take Your Love to Town."

There's also a smattering of screamingly hokey spoken word pieces written by one Charles R. Grean, which Nimoy delivers in character as Spock amid clouds of celestial music reminiscent of the work of "Star Trek" composer Alexander Courage. The best of these is "Spock Thoughts," a litany of hilarious platitudes that includes this priceless advice: "Speak your truth quietly and clearly and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant. They, too, have their story to tell!"

The album's Masterpiece is surely "Ballad of Bilbo Baggins," Grean's musicalized Cliff Notes retelling of Tolkien's "The Hobbit." Demented, charming and impossible to dislike, it's a groovy tune straight out of Monty Python, and Nimoy sings it with gusto.

While most of Nimoy's efforts are laugh-fests, it's hard to fault his commitment: He was clearly serious about his music. Luckily for his ardent fans, no one in Nimoy's orbit had the guts to tell Spock he had no clothes.


Mister tambourine man... MISTER TAMBOURINE MAN!!!   September 24, 2000
Michael Vanier (Pasadena, CA)
67 out of 70 found this review helpful

I love so-bad-it's-good music, so obviously I had to have this CD. There's so much superlatively, deliciously, appallingly bad stuff on this CD it's hard to know where to begin. Most of the CD is taken up by Nimoy, but the few Shatner tracks scale heights of awfulness that few other artists have even approached (not even Bobby Goldsboro). "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" and "Mr. Tambourine Man" prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that method acting and popular songs are not a marriage made in heaven. In fact, together they are possibly the worst songs ever recorded by anyone anywhere. I challenge you to listen to these two songs back-to-back and decide which is worse -- perhaps that's something man was never meant to know. The Nimoy tracks are not quite as spectacular, but there are many highlights there too: "Highly Illogical" is delightfully awful, and "The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins" is completely demented (it's a favorite on the Dr. Demento show). The rest of the songs are mostly just evidence of Mr. Nimoy's incredibly mediocre singing voice; some of them, like "Both Sides Now" should be included on a future compilation entitled "Good Songs Sung by Bad Singers". This CD is a treasure that you'll enjoy for years, although not for the reasons the artists intended.


Nearly flawless oddity   March 1, 2004
David Goldhammer (This Island Earth)
32 out of 32 found this review helpful

Has any recorded moment surpassed the intense dementia of Shatner's final scream in "Mr. Tambourine Man"? Do we really want to know?

This absurd CD opens the window to two cult favorites who found second careers as outlandishly kitsch performers. Much has been said of Nimoy's earnest, flat baritone; the reams of Shatner critiques could fill a large, easily combustible windmill -- but that would be too convenient, and a loss to people like me who occasionally need to be reminded why they (and others) actually listen to this stuff -- closely.

These recordings are either dizzying, hardcore, lovable dreck, or, to some, aural manure. History won't decide: you will, if you dare.

I have a complaint about this disk. Yes, just one, about two selections. One of the "Nimoy" tracks doesn't belong here for any reason, as it's nothing more than forgettable lounge muzak with zero artistic input from the Green One. "Music to Watch Space Girls By" sounds like a Herb Alpert outtake where he forgot his trumpet. Also, "Spock Thoughts" is just "Desiderata" recited blandly over third-rate background noise. I can do better, and so can you.

Instead, the compilers should have included "You Are Not Alone," a hideously warbled message of solidarity in this vast, impersonal universe (certainly a theme dear to Spock), and "Alien," a superior spoken dissertation on, well, alienation. They're featured on some other CD that costs nearly $60 used. I'll stick with my cut-out bin cassette for now.

The highlights of "Spaced Out" for me are the most famous offerings: the delirious Shatner takes on Dylan and the Beatles, plus the Nimoy novelty "Bilbo Baggins." The "Golden Throats" CD includes a quizzically-voiced, faded-in lead-in to Shatner's "Lucy in the Sky" edited off for this CD, but it seems we completists will always suffer a little. Also not to be missed are the bathyspherical depths of Nimoy's faulty tone and phrasing found on "Where is Love" and "Sunny"; the pure, howling turgidity of his deconstruction of "Proud Mary"; and a horror actually released as a single (according to the entertaining sleeve notes), and possibly written just for the Vulcan maestro -- "I'd Love Making Love to You," which exudes as much sultry seduction as a frozen duck on an antenna.

I try to imagine how the backing musicians made it through these sessions without screaming themselves, and wetting the floor with laughter.

P.S. I don't know how to create the "voting buttons."


An absolute masterpiece of horribleness   June 23, 1999
43 out of 46 found this review helpful

This album shows two *actors* - seen from the side that no man has seen before. Which is actually also the same side that no man should EVER have to see.

Before you buy this record, ask yourself this. Would you buy a used car from Mick Jagger? Would you buy a painting by Evel Knievel? Would anyone, in his right mind, buy cookies from the butcher or milk from the mailman?

If your answer to all of the above is 'yes', then go ahead, buy this magnificent CD. This one shows how horribly wrong it all can turn out when people start to venture outside their expertise, when bricklayers become cakebakers so to speak.

William Shatner can't sing! Nor can Leonard Nimoy! But that didn't stop them from going into the studio and recording an album. The outcome is a collection of serious spoofs of the artists themselves. Which is a good thing - it shows a sense of humour.

But who's lauging last? Is it the Star Trek hater, who says: 'Told you them weren't no good anyway nohow'? Is it the conoisseur, who says 'The music may be awful but it's the emotion that counts'? Is it you, having bought this magnificent piece of naive art? No. It's them. Nimoy and Shatner. Laughing their butts off, cause they sold another album.

So if you have any sense of humour, listen to this album and have one serious hootnanny of an evening. If you don't have a sense of humour then simply down a fifth of vodka and listen to this album. Same hootnanny.

I'd recommend it to anyone. Especially when you, like myself, suffer from unwanted guests on a regular basis. Want them to leave? Put this record on. Works like a charm.


"You never can find a parking space!" -Leonard Nimoy   September 17, 2004
J. D. Miller (Washington State)
26 out of 26 found this review helpful

An unintentional comedy album that surprisingly doesn't grow tiring, Spaced Out is a collection of the "best" (if there is such a thing) of Star Trek's William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy. The album is infinitely quotable, and is an absolute joy to anyone who likes, loves, or hates Star Trek.

Shatner, who until this year only had one album under his belt, makes far less appearances on the album, but he makes up for it with the entertainment value of his songs. "King Henry" is Shatner at his best, emoting every syllable, and would be a great starting point for stand-up comedians who plan to roast his acting. The Sinatra classic "Very Good Year" comes off surprisingly sincere, I have nothing bad to say about it. But Shatner truly shines on "Lucy In The Sky", as he tries to convey the vibe of the Beatles' acid trip lyrics by groaning them like a cartoon ghost. It's as good as it sounds. His highlight is the now-legendary "Mr. Tambourine Man". The usual Shatner pauses are incredibly long, as he stumbles through the Bob Dylan classic. "In the.... JINGLE... jangle... mornin'...", and concludes with an inexplicable anguished cry of the song's title, which is completely jarring and a little scary the first time you hear it. The bizzare nature of it will have your friends talking and laughing about it for months.

Nimoy, however, actually tries to sing. It's not that he's a terrible singer, it's just that everything about Leonard Nimoy is just... strange (which is why he gained a role as a man from another planet in the first place). His attempts at sincere takes on classics like Johnny Cash's "I Walk The Line" and Glen Campbell's "Gentle On My Mind" only evoke the mental image of Spock with a guitar in his lap singing ole' country tunes. On "Highly Illogical", Nimoy sings in character as Spock, describing ironic things about life. The song is hilariously dated when he sings about the perils of "automobiles" and their "push-button windows", when he points out the drawback to our dependancy on cars isn't the depletion of our fossil fules, but that "you never can find a parking space". The best moment on the album, in my opinion, is a mangled song about a mangled soldier; "Ruby, Don't Take Your Love To Town". The song opens with a drum beat intro, the music drops out croaks out the most non-Spock thing you could conceivable imagine him saying (let alone singing): "You painted up your lips and rolled and curled your pretty haiiiiiir!". A friend almost got into a car accident during his first listen to this intro, because he veered off the road in downtown city traffic while laughing. The same subject that Metallica crossed over into the mainstream for dealing with, ends up the death knell for Nimoy's hopes of being a respected singer.

The album's a absolute blast, and the songs are catchy enough to keep them from wearing out their welcome. Oh, and Lord Of The Rings fans? Listen to "Bilbo Baggins". Trust me.