SPINAL TRAP may be a fictional band, but its music is very real, and it is being used to raise money for Teen Cancer America, a non-profit founded by The Who’s Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend that runs cancer programs for teens and young adults ages 15-39.

Members of such legendary groups as Guns N’ Roses, Vixen, Foreigner, Lynch Mob, Foo Fighters, The Go-Go’s and Tool, among many others, appear on ”THE MAJESTY OF ROCK: A SPINAL TRAP Tribute”, a 35-song collection from the Spinal Tap catalog, including such Tap classics as ”Sex Farm,” “(Listen to the) Flower People,” “Hell Hole” and “Big Bottom.” The collection also features a contribution from the Play It Back Players, a band comprised of cancer patients and professional musicians, who donate their time.
Some of the versions are pretty faithful to the originals, while others took artistic licenses to make the songs very different. It isn’t mentioned where each famous musician perform due to contractual issues.

In the spirit of Spinal Tap, many of the musicians created fake bands for the project. For example, Vixen’s Britt Lightning formed The Lightning Rods for her contribution, while System of a Down’s John Dolmayan plays with Antenna The End. “Big Bottom” is attributed to the band S.S.R.J.C.T., which is comprised of Mastadon’s Troy Sanders, Failure’s Kellii Scott, Kyuss’s Scott Reeder, Foo Fighters’ Rami Jaffee, Tool’s Justin Chancellor and The Go-Go’s Abby Travis. (The band takes its name from the first initial of each musician’s last name)

However the great Chas West (ex Foreigner / Lynch Mob) performs with his real band West Bound, a killer version of “Tonight I’m Gonna Rock You Tonight”, easily among the best on the album. And Guns N’ Roses’ Dizzy Reed plays with producer and multi-instrumentalist Jason Achilles (who partnered with NASA’s JPL to help put one of the first microphones on Mars!)
Only 5,000 digital copies of the compilation will be available and can be purchased for a minimum donation of $19.84, a reference to the year ‘This is Spinal Tap’ was released in 1984.
And why limited if this is a benefit project? They had to get permission from Tap’s record label. They are the ones who set the download sales limit and told them “no streaming.”