It’s been a barren seven years since Beavis And Butt-Head last graced us with its vital brand of pop music commentary. After a brief 2011 revival saw the boys return for one more season of misadventures and snuffly, mindlessly giggling meta-television, we’ve been left to decide whether every track in between “rules” or “sucks” all on our own. It’s been tough.
Now, though, the cartoon duo has been resurrected, lending their honeyed tones to a short clip played at Portugal. The Man’s current tour dates. As Billboard reports, the band has been playing some of the video for their obnoxiously popular single “Feel It Still” at the beginning of shows and, apparently eager to warm up audiences by opening themselves up to mockery, have invited Beavis and Butt-Head to supply their trademark, couch-based criticism.
As expected, the short sees the eternal teenagers react to Portugal. The Man with instinctual disgust. After giggling at the words “Portugal” and “The Man,” Butt-Head calls the video “a crime scene” and makes fun of lead singer John Gourley’s mustache. “When you have complicated facial hair like that, I think it means you have, like, problems,” Beavis adds before temporarily being swept into a pyromaniac frenzy by the music video briefly showing a burning newspaper.
The commentary reaches a kind of crescendo as Butt-Head experiences a revelation, saying that they’ve misunderstood the band—that Portugal. The Man’s track actually “sucks so hard that it sucked a hole through the dimensional wall into awesomeness.” Compressing “this much crap under the force of this much pretension” creates “a beautiful diamond,” Butt-Head explains. The result is a band “better than The Beatles, better than The Rolling Stones, better than Silverchair,” and “almost as good as Pantera.”
While this conclusion may feel like a bit of a cop-out given the merciless opening, it’s still nice just to have Beavis and Butt-Head back and reminding us of simpler metrics by which to judge music. Even in a limited, promotional form, they cut to the quick.
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