The Academy-Award nominated, Emmy-winning, ever-brilliant entity known as South Park returns this Wednesday following a brief hiatus. Over the last dozen years, Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s brainchild has evolved from a simple gross-out cartoon intent on pushing the boundaries of basic cable to a whipsmart satire of contemporary American politics and culture (intent on pushing the boundaries of basic cable). At times, the turnaround from current event to grist for the South Park mill has been staggering; many episodes have gone from conception to broadcast within as little as two weeks.

As such, it’s fairly likely that if a story is making waves in society, you’ll be treated to Parker and Stone’s refreshingly simplified and hilarious take before the ink has had time to fully dry. And when we’re really lucky, we get treated to an episode inspired by some inane aspect of the music industry that the duo just can’t resist picking apart, because let’s face it, there’s lots to make fun of here. So here we present our top 10 favorite South Park music-related episodes, realizing fully of course that there are many more we left out (including, for the obvious reason that it’s not an episode, the Academy-Award nominated South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut). Honestly, you wouldn’t even believe how many times we got Rickrolled while foraging for clips on YouTube, and yet we persevered to bring you the crème de la crème:

• 10. “Canada On Strike!” – Air Date: 4/2/08. Speaking of Rickrolling, this recent episode attacks the whole notion of internet celebrity with uncanny accuracy, including a shot-for-shot parody of Samwell’s surprise viral hit “What What (In The Butt)” as performed by……BUTTERS!

  
  the Butters version (above)

  
  ….and the original Samwell version (above)

• 9. “Chef Aid” – Air Date: 10/7/98. This one made the list more for old-times sake than anything else, a classic crossover episode that spawned Chef Aid: The South Park Album while showcasing the full amazingness of Isaac Hayes’ Chef…

  Listen: “Chocolate Salty Balls”

• 8. “Scott Tenorman Must Die” – Air Date: 7/11/01. A classic cat-and mouse episode between Cartman and a 7th-grader, Scott Tenorman, set off by Eric’s naive purchase of Tenorman’s pubic hair. In the commentary to this episode, Parker and Stone explained how Cartman’s drastic form of revenge against Tenorman (killing his parents, chopping them up and serving them to him as chili) revealed a new sociopathic side to his character. But perhaps equally damaging was his ability to have Radiohead - Tenorman’s idols - lord over him and call him a baby as he sat there sobbing. Imagine being called a baby by Thom Yorke?

  

• 7. “Major Boobage” – Air Date: 3/26/08. Parker and Stone pay homage to the 1981 cult classic Heavy Metal via a Kenny hallucination following his accidental ingestion of cat urine. The fun starts 21 seconds in here…

• 6. “The Jeffersons” – Air Date: 4/21/04. In classic South Park fashion, this episode manages to instill both sympathy and disgust towards its subject, this time an infantilized and exiled Michael Jackson laying low in South Park as “Mr. Jefferson”. Witness the hilariously spot-on Jackson persona they created in this episode in the following clip collection of Mr. Jefferson moments…

• 5. “Trapped in the Closet” – Air Date: 11/16/05 A satirical mashup of Scientology with R. Kelly’s surreal “Trapped in the Closet”. Tom Cruise, John Travolta, Xenu, R. Kelly….this one’s got it all….

• 4. “Something You Can Do with Your Finger” – Air Date: 7/12/2000. Broadcast at the height of the boy-band craze, here the boys start their own boy band in the hopes of making it rich. Thus, Fingerbang is born….

• 3. “Britney’s New Look” – Air Date: 3/19/08. Apart from the “Leave Britney Alone!” dude, Parker and Stone were probably the first to exhibit sympathy for Spears for the perverse volume of scrutiny leveled upon her throughout a very public downward spiral. The premise is genius: the townsfolk drive young pop starlets to insanity out of necessity, sacrificing their lives as an offering to ensure healthy crops for the coming spring (watch out Miley). See the trainwreck…

• 2. “Christian Rock Hard” – Air Date: 10/29/03. Inspired by Metallica’s kvetching about being screwed out of money by Napster and other file-sharing services, this episode suggests most commercially successful musicians are motivated by greed instead of art. Of course, that’s just the B-story. The real star of this episode is Cartman and his efforts in selling a million albums with his Christian rock band, Faith +1, in which he takes pre-existing pop songs and substitutes “Jesus” for “girl” or “baby”, resulting in some amazing lyrical gems like, “I want to get down on my knees and please you Jesus, and feel your salvation all over my face.” In fact, here’s the tracklisting from the Faith +1 album:

  1. “The Body of Christ”
  2. “Christ Again”
  3. “A Night with the Lord”
  4. “Touch Me Jesus”
  5. “I Found Jesus (With Someone Else)”
  6. “Saviour Self”
  7. “Christ What a Day”
  8. “I Wasn’t Born Again Yesterday”
  9. “Three Times My Savior”
  10. “Jesus Touched Me”
  11. “Pleasing Jesus”
  12. “Jesus Baby”

  And here’s the album cover….
  

• 1. “Guitar Queer-o” – Air Date: 11/7/07. Video games are frivolous, pointless, unproductive escapism; and this is precisely why they are insanely fun and addictive. This episode nails this concept, in that playing make believe in the vain pursuit of a million points in Guitar Hero is more rewarding than learning a real instrument (watch Randy try to impress Stan by playing a “real guitar”) while inducing such high levels of addiction that the only way to get off of it is by playing an equally addictive game, Heroin Hero, all of which is wrapped up in the classic template of the “buddy story”. Quite simply, a masterpiece, the far-reaching influence of which is evident in the sheer amount of tributes and trash it’s spawned on YouTube in its wake. Unfortunately, here’s the best clip we could find from this episode. It’s still worth watching, if only for the first minute or so….

We’re not sure how Parker and Stone could possibly top this, but the satire keeps getting stronger as the seasons progress. Translation: tune in Wednesday and brace for whatever comes next.