''The Pick of Destiny'' is the second studio album and the soundtrack for the feature film of the same name by American

comedy rock Comedy rock is rock music that is comedic in nature. Oftentimes it is mixed with satire or irony.V. Bogdanov, C. Woodstra and S. T. Erlewine, ''All music guide to rock: the definitive guide to rock, pop, and soul'' (Backbeat Books, 3rd Edition. ...

band

Tenacious D Tenacious D is an American comedy rock duo formed in Los Angeles, California in 1994. It was founded by actors Jack Black and Kyle Gass, who were members of The Actors' Gang theater company at the time. The duo's name is derived from "ten ...

. The album was released on November 14, 2006, through Epic Records, and debuted at number 8 on the ''Billboard'' 200. ''The Pick of Destiny'' is the band's first studio release in five years, following up their self-titled debut album in 2001. The album was produced by the

Dust Brothers The Dust Brothers are a pair of songwriters and producers consisting of E.Z. Mike ( Michael Simpson) and King Gizmo ( John King). They are famous for the sample-based music they produced in the 1980s and 1990s, and specifically for their work on ...

' John King, and includes appearances by

Meat Loaf Michael Lee Aday (born Marvin Lee Aday; September 27, 1947 – January 20, 2022), known professionally as Meat Loaf, was an American rock singer and actor. He was noted for his powerful, wide-ranging voice and theatrical live shows. He is on t ...

, Ronnie James Dio, and Dave Grohl. Another album, ''More Rocktastic Music from the Film'', contains some small excerpts of the official score that the soundtrack excludes.

Details

In the absence of original comedy skits, there are excerpts of dialogue from the soundtrack's accompanying film between numerous songs. Portions of ''The Pick of Destiny'' were recorded at Dave Grohl's studio. A clean version of the album was recorded. The album was released in three separate edits: the original version comprising the full film versions, a "clean edit" with re-recorded vocals replacing foul language with non-sense words, and a deluxe edition. All three versions contain clips from the movie, but some dialogue was re-recorded for the clean version. The special limited edition was released in a cardboard "old book case", which includes a

digipack Optical disc packaging is the packaging that accompanies CDs, DVDs, and other formats of optical discs. Most packaging is rigid or semi-rigid and designed to protect the media from scratches and other types of exposure damage. Jewel case ...

version of the album, a foldout poster depicting Black and Gass with bigfoot, eight

tarot cards The tarot (, first known as '' trionfi'' and later as ''tarocchi'' or ''tarocks'') is a pack of playing cards, used from at least the mid-15th century in various parts of Europe to play card games such as Tarocchini. From their Italian roots ...

from the film (Tenacious D, The Training, Destiny, Masterpiece, The Quest, The Divide, and Two Kings, as well as a card explaining the other cards), and a plastic replica of ''The Pick of Destiny''. If the set was pre-ordered from the Tenacious D website, it also included a T-shirt. In recent years the song “Kickapoo” has become the unofficial fight song of Kickapoo High School, located in

Springfield Missouri Springfield is the third largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and the county seat of Greene County. The city's population was 169,176 at the 2020 census. It is the principal city of the Springfield metropolitan area, which had an estimat ...

. In the music video to the song it shows how they are referring to “Kickapoo” in Missouri, it is unknown if this is referring to the area that the high school is in because there is no town or township in Missouri with the name Kickapoo. This also could come from inspiration from Brad Pitt, Kickapoo High School Alumn and friend of Jack Black frontman of

Album art

The cover shows Black and Gass in the clouds, parodying Michelangelo's painting ''

The Creation of Adam '' Creation of Adam'' () is a fresco painting by Italian artist Michelangelo, which forms part of the Sistine Chapel's ceiling, painted c. 1508–1512. It illustrates the Biblical creation narrative from the Book of Genesis in which God gives li ...

''. In between the two's hands is the Pick of Destiny, the movie's titular artifact, with the

devil A devil is the personification of evil as it is conceived in various cultures and religious traditions. It is seen as the objectification of a hostile and destructive force. Jeffrey Burton Russell states that the different conceptions of ...

's arm pictured below them, sticking out from the clouds trying to take the pick. Apart from the exemption of the

parental advisory Advisory (abbreviated PAL) is a warning label introduced by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in 1985 and adopted by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) in 2011. It is placed on audio recordings in recognition of profan ...

sticker, there is no difference in the artwork for the clean version of the album.

Publicity

A short film entitled '' Time Fixers'' was used as a promotional tool on the iTunes website. The film starred

Michael Keaton Michael John Douglas (born September 5, 1951), known professionally as Michael Keaton, is an American actor. He is known for his various comedic and dramatic film roles, including Jack Butler in ''Mr. Mom'' (1983), Betelgeuse in '' Beetlejuice'' ...

and longtime collaborators JR Reed and Paul F. Tompkins. The first half of the film was available as a free download on iTunes while the second half could only be accessed after pre-ordering the album.

Track listing

Credits

;Tenacious D * Jack Black – lead vocals, acoustic guitar *

Kyle Gass Kyle Richard Gass (born July 14, 1960) is an American musician, comedian and actor best known for co-founding—and being a member of—Tenacious D, a Grammy-winning comedy band. He also co-founded the bands Trainwreck and the Kyle Gass Band, ...

–

backing vocals A backing vocalist is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists. A backing vocalist may also sing alone as a lead-in to the main vocalist's entry or to sing a counter-melody. Backing vocalists are ...

, acoustic and

electric guitar An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar (however combinations of the two - a semi-acoustic guitar and an electric acoustic gu ...

recorder Recorder or The Recorder may refer to: Newspapers * ''Indianapolis Recorder'', a weekly newspaper * ''The Recorder'' (Massachusetts newspaper), a daily newspaper published in Greenfield, Massachusetts, US * ''The Recorder'' (Port Pirie), a news ...

on "Papagenu (He's My Sassafrass)" ;Additional Musicians * Dave Grohl – drums, demon vocals on "Beelzeboss (The Final Showdown)" *

John Konesky John S. Konesky (born November 19, 1980) is an American guitarist and record producer, best known for his role as the lead electric guitar player for Tenacious D. Konesky was born and raised in Columbus, Ohio, where he performed in a band with f ...

– electric guitar *

– guest vocals on "Kickapoo" * Ronnie James Dio – guest vocals on "Kickapoo" * John Spiker –

bass guitar The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...

, backing vocals on "Car Chase City", clavinet on "Papagenu (He's My Sassafrass)" * Liam Lynch – additional

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strin ...

on "Beelzeboss (The Final Showdown)" and "Break In-City (Storm the Gate!)" * John King –

drum programming Programming is a form of music production and performance using electronic devices and computer software, such as sequencers and workstations or hardware synthesizers, sampler and sequencers, to generate sounds of musical instruments. These ...

on "Papagenu (He's My Sassafrass)" ;Production * Produced by John King * Assistant engineers: Ed Cherney, Nick Raskulinecz, John Spiker, Brad Breeck *Recorded at The Dell and 606 Studio * Mixed by

Ken Andrews Ken Andrews (born Kenneth Andrew Doty; June 18, 1967) is an American musician, singer-songwriter, and record producer. Andrews was born in Seattle, Washington, and attended film school in Los Angeles before his band Failure received a record de ...

Mastered Mastering, a form of audio post production, is the process of preparing and transferring recorded audio from a source containing the final mix to a data storage device (the master), the source from which all copies will be produced (via meth ...

by Tom Baker at Precision Mastering *

Orchestra An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families. There are typically four main sections of instruments: * bowed string instruments, such as the violin, viola, c ...

l arrangements by Andrew Gross, recorded at Sony Scoring Stage, engineered by Casey Stone * Baritone saxophone and

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keybo ...

on "Kickapoo" recorded at Capitol Studios, engineered by Casey Stone *

Management Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a Government agency, government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business. Management includ ...

: Sam * A&R: Matt Marshall *

Music executive A music executive or record executive is a person within a record label who works in senior management and makes executive decisions over the label's artists. Their role varies greatly but in essence, they can oversee one, or many, aspects of a re ...

: Bob Bowen *

Photography Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employe ...

: Michael Elins * Album packaging design by: Gregg Higgins/Michael Elins

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

''More Rocktastic Music from the Film''

''More Rocktastic Music from the Film'' is a score album by Andrew Gross and John King for the movie ''

Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny ''Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny'' is a 2006 American musical fantasy comedy film about comedy rock duo Tenacious D. Written, produced by and starring Tenacious D members Jack Black and Kyle Gass, it is directed and co-written by musician a ...

''. It was exclusive to

Wal-Mart Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores from the United States, headquarter ...

stores, coming shrink-wrapped with the DVD. The score consists of six orchestral songs written specifically to accompany the film, and two songs by Kyle Gass' band Trainwreck.

Track listing

All songs were written by Andrew Gross and John King, except where noted. # "The Birth of The D" – 1:26 # "Compared to the Greats" – 0:43 # "The Stranger Suite" – 1:44 # "Guitarway to Heaven" – 0:51 # "Hall of Fame Sneak" – 2:15 # "Capturing The Pick" – 1:03 # "Caveman" – 3:53 (Trainwreck) # "I Wanna Know" – 3:41 (Trainwreck)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Pick Of Destiny, The Tenacious D albums Albums produced by John King (record producer) Comedy film soundtracks Comedy rock soundtracks 2006 soundtrack albums Epic Records soundtracks