Comedy You Don’t Care About – Part 1 Comments
Well, another week, another article foiled by Wordpress taking a holiday. By the time Wordpress starts working properly, I’m going to have one hell of a backlog of MYDCA’s for you guys to read. In the meantime, rather than succumb to the pressure of just calling it a week again, I’ve decided to soldier on and put an article together as best I can.
Some of you may know I have a great love for standup comedy. This love developed over the course of playing World of Warcraft, after realizing that the combination of the two made time fly quite effectively. For this week’s article, I’ve decided to cover some of my personal favorite comedy albums of all time. These are in no particular order, and cover a range of just under forty years.
Bill Hicks – Rant in E Minor
If you were to ask me what I consider the best comedy album of all time to be, I might mull over the question for a while, but I’d eventually come to Rant in E Minor. One of the last albums by struggling legend Bill Hicks, Rant in E Minor was recorded in 1993, and following Hicks’ death in ’94, was eventually released in 1997. The influence of Bill Hicks is sighted by just about every modern comedian worth their salt, and Rant in E Minor captures Hicks at his most angry, paranoid, dark, and polarizing. My personal favorite moment is a little piece entitled “Rush Limbaugh”, where for two and a half minutes, Hicks conjures the most repulsive, shocking, vomit-inducing image of the conservative figurehead you will ever hear. I’m not one to get shocked easily, and there are moments here that make even me gasp. This is made doubly impressive by the fact that this material is 17 years old. Most of the material here, including pieces about abortion and gays in the military, are still relevant today, meaning that things just haven’t changed much in 17 years, or that Bill Hicks was just years ahead of his time. My guess is the latter.
“Rush Limbaugh”
George Carlin – Complaints and Grievances
When talking about the late great George Carlin, most people remember the revolutionary “Seven Words” section of his breakout album Class Clown. While I enjoy Class Clown greatly, for me the defining album in the Carlin catalogue is 2001’s Complaints and Grievances. Recorded two months after 9/11, the album manages to not only address the disaster in a funny but not mean-spirited way, but also manages to sum up everything that makes later-years Carlin so endearing. There’s the monologue about gross daily minutia we rarely talk about (“You And Me”), there’s a lot of George singling out idiotic people/trends (the whole middle of the album), and of course, a terrific critique of religion (“Why We Don’t Need Ten Commandments”). To me, this is Carlin firing on all cylinders, delivering some of his finest material ever.
“Why We Don’t Need Ten Commandments”
Zach Galifinakis – Live at the Purple Onion
This isn’t technically an album, but fuck you, I don’t care. Best known for his performance in The Hangover, Zach Galifinakis is one of this generation’s truly great avant-garde comedians. On paper, the formula is pretty standard: plenty of one-liner jokes in the vein of Steven Wright / Demetri Martin, combined with a healthy dose of improvisation. What makes Galifinakis exceptional is harder to categorize. It’s something about his delivery, his fascination with useless tangents, the way he constantly seems to be on the verge of unbridled insanity. This clip summarizes the brilliant lunacy of an average Zach Galifinakis set, complete with a healthy dose of yelling at the audience.
“Part 2″
Christopher Titus – The 5th Annual End of the World Tour
This one might not be an obvious choice, but so be it. Christopher Titus’ greatest strength as a comedian is his narrative prowess; each of his three albums (each one a double disc-er) have something of a cohesive narrative, be it his psychotic family (Norman Rockwell Is Bleeding), love and his divorce (Love is Evol), and the ruin of mankind as a species (this album). Most people would struggle to find humour in such dark topics, but Titus revels in it. He seamlessly transitions from one hilarious story to the next, and always puts enough of a spin on his material to make it more than just an amusing anecdote. Titus discusses racism, parenthood, the space program, 9/11, the war in Afghanistan, pedophile priests, and his father’s death, without ever getting morbid or somber. There’s a fantastic energy to the set, and Titus sells these stories in a way that makes their authenticity impossible to doubt.
(couldn’t find an actual clip on Youtube, this clip is something of a mashup of various material on the album)
Eddie Murphy – Comedian
Before Eddie Murphy assumed his now unassailable role as “box-office disappointment incarnate”, he was a Saturday Night Live performer and massively successful stand-up comedian. His most iconic performance, released on CD as Comedian and on video as Delirious, reminds you just how talented the man can be when he’s not in kids movies. He shows off his impression skills with his hilarious rant about singers (he brilliantly imitates Michael Jackson, James Brown, and Stevie Wonder, just to name a few), but integrates them into an actual joke rather than having the impressions be their own punchline, as in the case with many famous impressionists. He also discusses a lot of relatable childhood anecdotes, like ice cream trucks and family cookouts, but puts his own spin on the material. Hell, there’s even a bit about the possibility for a black president; ironic in a modern context, hilarious no matter when you hear it.
“Singers”
