Ten genuine(ish) musical collaborations

With Eddie Murphy, Jerry Seinfeld and Chris Rock all working – or rumoured to be working – with musicians on future projects, here’s our entirely arbitrary top ten list of comedians undertaking (mostly) serious musical collaborations.

10. Eddie Murphy and Snoop Lion

Murphy released a couple of singles in the mid-Nineties, neither of which troubled the UK charts. But now he’s back in the studio working on a new album – and last week released this reggae track, Red Light, with Snoop Lion:

9. Jerry Seinfeld and Wale

Washington-based rapper Wale came to prominence with the 2008 album inspired by Seinfeld’s hit sitcom, A Mixtape About Nothing. The comic was duly flattered and impressed, and has now recorded the ad-libbed track – Outro About Nothing – to close the hip-hop star’s new album The Gifted,  which was also released last week.

Here’s the opening track from the original mixtape:

And them messing about in the studio for The Gifted:

8. Ricky Gervais and Doc Brown

Well if Seinfeld’s doing it... Gervais teamed up with rapper-turned comic Doc Brown to bring back David Brent for this year’s Comic Relief. Their tongue-in-cheek anti-discrimination rap Equality Street has certainly proved a hit, with 3.5million YouTube views so far.

7. Pet Shop Boys and Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley

Still with Comic Relief for this 1994 single. Many musical atrocities have been released in the name of the charity, usually cover versions (Mel Smith & Kim Wilde’s Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree, anyone?) or a chance for Peter Kay to live out his Eighties pop star fantasies. This offering mightn’t have been amazing, but it was at least original – written because Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe were fans of the show. They dubbed dialogue from the series over their track, for a single that made No 6 in the charts.

6. George Formby vs Apex Twin

Not that the gap-toothed banjolele ace knew much about it, having conveniently died in 1961, but 46 years late a mashup outfit called The Chop Shop cut Formby’s signature tune When I’m Cleaning Window into Aphex Twin. It doesn’t entirely work, but the hook proves annoyingly catchy:

5. Chris Rock and Kanye West

Chris Rock makes a surprise appearance on the breakup track Blame Game on Kanye West’s 2010 album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Midway through, the comic turns up as the new boyfriend of Kanye’s ex. But this might not be the end of Rock’s musical career as he recently posted a picture online of himself in the studio with Eminem. He teased: ‘I was on the Kanye record - maybe I'm on the Eminem record. You never know...’

4. Norman Wisdom: Big in Albania

OK, so this is definitely a novelty song. In his book and TV series One Hit Wonderland, Tony Hawks was set the challenge of having a No1 hit. So he rounded up master lyricist Sir Time Rice to write something for comedy icon Sir Norman, capitalising on his unlikely fame in Albania. This is the result, which sadly failed to top the charts, only getting as high as No 18.

3 Woody Allen and the Eddy Davis New Orleans Jazz Band

Time Out New York says Allen’s regular Monday night residency at the Carlyle Hotel ‘isn’t just some superstar vanity trip’ – though how many dixieland bands without A-list members could charge nearly $150 a head is a moot point. Still, the comedian turned film-maker is a pretty mean jazz clarinetist:

2. Vic Reeves and the Wonder Stuff

Now we’re talking! This exuberant 1991 cover of the Tommy Roe classic rightly became a chart-topper – and a generation-spanning favourite at weddings ever sicne...

1. David Baddiel, Frank Skinner and the Lightning Seeds

No 1 has to be Three Lions. The definitive England football song, made on the back of Baddiel and Skinner’s Fantasy Football show, captures the real rollercoaster ride of being a fan, rather than the blinkered, triumphalist optimism of most footy anthems. Released for Euro 96, it topped the charts despite the obvious handicap of the comics’s singing voices – as did a revised version for the World Cup two years later. In 2010 Robbie Williams and Russell Brand help make yet another a new version, but it could only reach No 21... and was actually outsold by a rerelease of the 1996 original:

Published: 2 Jul 2013