where to download albums reddit SPIN’s 40 Greatest Comedy Albums of All Time. , , and 37 other records funnier than 'Lulu' Comedy albums have come a long way since Thomas Edison etched the first recorded dick joke to wax cylinder (“Hey, want to see the wizard’s staff of Menlo Park?”). In the 1960s, comedy albums were totemic, regularly beating out Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett for Album of the Year Grammys. In the 1970s, guys like Richard Pryor and Redd Foxx inspired the flows of hundreds of rappers who rifled through their parents’ record collections. In the 1980s, the business was bustling enough to provide Emo Phillips with a major-label deal. With the recent rise of comedic podcasts like WTF with Marc Maron , The Ricky Gervais Show , and The Glenn Beck Podcast , people are listening to funny stuff more than they have in forever. In honor of our November 2011 “Funny” Issue, we assembled a crack team of comedy nerds to compile an authoritative, definitive list of the 40 best comedy albums of all time. Here’s 40 artists who deserve to sell more units than Jeff Foxworthy. 40. Andrew “Dice” Clay. The Day The Laughter Died (1990) The free-associative filth masquerading as jokes on the Diceman’s two-disc debut is one step below bathroom graffiti. But the unique production, mostly perpetrated by master “reducer” Rick Rubin, makes this an immortal document of raw humanity: small club, small crowd, unsuspecting victims, the day-after-Christmas malaise. Swinging from “juvenile” to “politically incorrect” to “unrepentantly sexist and racist,” Dice performs a 102-minute tightrope act where his porno talk falls flat, he’s forced to shout down requests for famous bits, and he causes heckling tourists to flee the room in disgust. “This show’s not about laughter,” he says, “it’s about comedy.” CHRISTOPHER R. WEINGARTEN. 39. The Smothers Brothers. At the Purple Onion (1961) When it comes to lambasting the preciousness of folkies, A Mighty Wind gets all the accolades, but the Smothers Brothers deserve most of the credit. While remaining astonishingly family-friendly, Dick and Tom’s points of interest were ribbing the newly birthed counterculture: beatniks, jazzbos, drugs, women’s lib, and generally those who grew their hair and turned in/out/off in the ’60s. Recorded at the epicenter of the San Fran movement in 1961, this debut album catapulted the Smothers into lefty icons, with a sound that positioned them as bickering contemporaries of neo-folk revivalists like the Kingston Trio. HENRY OWINGS. 38. . (1986) Mork unbound! Two nights in New York, one of which aired as a comparatively sedate HBO special, boiled down to 65 minutes of borderline- Tourettesian short-attention-span theater, with Williams fast-forwarding from substance abuse to sobriety to fatherhood to Reagan (“Don’t you see? He was Disney’s last wish!”) like his chest hair was on fire — and using language far filthier than “Shazbot!” to do it. A master, captured before his Salad Shooter-ish schtick turned self-parodic. His tendency toward twinkly-eyed earnestness took care of what was left of his appeal; the most sentimental bit here involves a child saying “Fuck it.” ALEX PAPPADEMAS. 37. Bobcat Goldthwait. Meat Bob (1988) By the late ’80s, Goldthwait’s vocal tic of careening between fragile Emo Phillips manchild and mid-sentence death-metal growls was as much albatross as calling card. Yes, the voice was earning him that Police Academy and Hot to Trot money and fulfilling two-drink minimums in comedy clubs, but it was also at odds with his junior Bill Hicks, self-described “left-wing lunatic” agenda. By the end of side one, Goldthwait’s largely dispensed with the schtick in favor of clearly-voiced Reagan and Swaggart tirades, presumably to some audience members’ chagrin. Anyone who was surprised by the acid genius of Shakes the Clown four years later never heard this. STEVE KANDELL. Martin Mull and His Fabulous Furniture in Your Living Room! (1973) Redd Foxx 5 Comedy Albums Discount MegaSet MP3 CD Download USB Drive. A Discount MegaSet Of 5 Redd Foxx Comedy Album 33 1/3 LP Records, Presented As An Archival Quality 5 Disc MP3 CD Set, MP3 Audio Download Or USB Flash Drive! #ReddFoxx #ComedyAlbums #StandUpComedians #Comedians #TVStars #Sitcoms #PopularCulture #BlackRecords #RaceRecords #ComedyAlbums #MP3 #CD #AudioDownload #USBFlashDrive. MP3 CD #1: Redd Foxx Sly Sex Comedy Album LP MP3 CD Released For The First Time On CD! Redd Foxx's Super Sexy 1960 Comedy Album LP In MP3 CD Format! A1 The Holy Golf Game | A2 People That Eat | A3 Pushed For Money | A4 Brains And Money | A5 The Licked Husband | A6 The Rabbit And The Lion | B1 The Particular Eater | B2 Women's Exercises | B3 Shooting For Fun | B4 Government Fun | B5 Honeymoon Fun | B6 The Big Posse. MP3 CD #2: Redd Foxx Laffarama Comedy Album LP MP3 CD Released For The First Time On CD! Risque Race Records Genre Master Redd Foxx Gets Crazy In This 1961 Comedy Album LP In MP3 CD Format! A1 The Kid In The Bag | A2 How To Get A Husband | A3 The Unmarried Mother | A4 The Dog In The Brassiere | A5 How To Keep A Husband | A6 Hard Times In St. Louis | B1 Sex In The Park | B2 The Miscarriage | B3 Adultery Is Murder | B4 The Virgin Birth | B5 Under Sister's Dress | B6 The Running Dogs. MP3 CD #3: Both Sides Of Redd Foxx Comedy Album LP MP3 CD The Master Of The Risque Race Records Genre Redd Foxx Shows Us So Much Of Both His Sides In This 1966 Comedy Album LP Release Of Redd Performing Live In Hollywood That He Named Each Side Of The Album After Both Himselves In MP3 CD Format! Side 1 | Side 2 (See, no kidding, both sides indeed!) MP3 CD #4: Redd Foxx Jokes I Can't Tell On Television LP Album MP3 CD Released For The First Time On CD! The Master Of The Risque Race Records Genre Redd Foxx Tells The World The Jokes He'd Never Get Away With Telling On TV In This 1969 Comedy Album LP In MP3 CD Format! A1 On The Bus | A2 E F Or F F | A3 Anniversaries | A4 Grit | A5 Slingshot Nuts | A6 Pregnant | A7 Disturbing The Piece | B1 Guarding Clothes | B2 Pitch A Boogie | B3 Meat Lifting | B4 Confuscious Say | B5 Fuckawi | B6 Stinker | B7 Platonic | B8 Sex Pill. MP3 CD #5: Redd Foxx Black 'N' Blue Comedy Album LP MP3 CD Released For The First Time On CD! Black Risque Race Records Genre Master Redd Foxx Gets Blue In The In This 1982 Comedy Album LP In MP3 CD Format! Black 'N' Blue Side 1 | Black 'N' Blue Side 2 (Unnamed tracks for making sure to get by the censors :) ) The best comedy albums of the decade. The ’00s will likely be remembered as the era “alternative comedy” broke. After the boom and bust of stand-up in the ’80s and the distinctly Seinfeld-ian ’90s, a new generation of smartasses arrived to stretch the limits and help redefine it. David Cross proved stand-up didn’t need to be performed in traditional two-drink-minimum comedy clubs. Neil Hamburger created comedy that’s funny because it’s so incredibly not funny. Mike Birbiglia went from traditional stand-up to a storytelling format that became one-man shows. Scharpling & Wurster reignited the radio comedy of days gone by. And Tenacious D and showed that musical comedy can exist in the post-ironic age. That said, it wasn’t all envelope-pushing; plenty of comics released fantastic old-fashioned comedy albums—and even as the younger generation took hold, old pros like George Carlin and released some of their finest work. The A.V. Club looked back on the aughts and picked our favorites. George Carlin, Complaints And Grievances (2001) Two months after two jetliners dive-bombed a gaping hole into his native New York City, George Carlin took the stage at New York’s Beacon Theatre on live HBO and opened with this: “You know somethin’ people don’t talk about in public anymore? Pussy farts!” Carlin had a live wire to a nation at its most vulnerable, and he wasn’t about to let us stay all moony and soft. Complaints And Grievances sounded like a tremendous warning shot, and the warning went like this: The alert curmudgeon of 1999’s You Are All Diseased would dig his finely manicured claws of vulgarity into humanity’s faltering conscience until the bitter fucking end. There’s no pompous sense of mission to keep Carlin from tearing through a lengthy discourse on picking mysterious objects from your ass (“Honey, come here! Want a couple of hits off of this? Did we eat at Kenny Rogers’ restaurant again?”) or bitching about the rise of “soft” names. (“I’ll bet you anything that 10 times out of 10, Nicky, Vinnie, and Tony will beat the shit out of Todd, Kyle, and Tucker.”) Key track: Carlin ends Complaints And Grievances with “Why We Don’t Need 10 Commandments,” perhaps the most cosmically daring moment in the history of comedy and/or live television: He reduces the 10 Commandments to two, then challenges God to prove His existence by striking the audience dead. (Scott Gordon) Todd Barry, Medium Energy (2001) Todd Barry may well be the least excitable comic on this list, and with good reason. It takes a certain meticulous touch to construct such mini- snowglobes of sarcasm as the 55 tracks on his first album, 2001’s Medium Energy . Most of them cram entire episodes of satire into less than a minute, like “Bands Reuniting,” in which The Eagles announce they’ll be getting back together to “knock some stuff around” at Giants Stadium, “then leave in nine separate limousines.” Medium Energy is also a lesson in how fun it can be to craft thoroughly depressing images: “Those restaurants in Chinatown just don’t make hot-dog-fried rice the way I like it,” Barry says in a bit about purchasing a wok to make his own “mediocre Chinese food”; he gets another bit (“Check With Meal”) from his habit of eating out alone. Key track: “Neck Tattoo” (which clocks in at a comparatively whopping 2:32) stands with the rest of the album’s bits in its sly observations. (“‘Hey man, you forgot to not do that , ya big scary piece of shit.’ That’s the way I talk to big guys with neck tattoos.”) Then it expands into the full Todd Barry package, complete with weird crowd interaction and perverse egotism: “Then they roll over and they go, ‘Holy shit, it’s Todd Barry peeing on me. This is the best Valentine’s Day Ever.’” (Scott Gordon) Tenacious D, Tenacious D (2001) Yes, the D was funnier when it was just Jack Black, Kyle Gass, two guitars, three chords, and several F-words. And, sure, some of the duo’s best songs (“Cosmic Shame,” “Sasquatch”) didn’t make it to this self-titled debut . But Tenacious D remains a surprisingly credible rock record that holds up even after the jokes about Cleveland steamers and cock push-ups wear out their comedic value. Which is good, because while Black’s endless mugging is a little too familiar now after a decade of mostly forgettable movies, his relentless vulgarity and shameless self- indulgence make him an ideal hard-rock frontman, with or without a dose of irony. Key track: “Fuck Her Gently” shouldn’t be relegated to the comedy-album ghetto—it’s one of the decade’s best love songs, period. (Steven Hyden) Neil Hamburger, Laugh Out Lord (2002) Making “painfully awkward” sound like a walk in the park, Neil Hamburger has skirted the fringe of both the comedy and indie-rock worlds for years. But Laugh Out Lord isn’t just a monument to his staying power; it shows exactly how willfully and depressingly unfunny comedy can get, while still making people laugh. On Lord , Hamburger—the homeless, hapless, neo-Borscht Belt persona of Gregg Turkington—subverts the overcompensating swagger of the typical neurotic comedian in favor of something much more glum and bizarre, including dips into excruciating solipsism and 9/11 jokes cracked way too soon. Riddled with off-target pop-culture jabs, canned heckling, horrible timing, phlegmatic throat-clearing, and the occasional onstage nervous breakdown, Laugh Out Lord shows Hamburger to be a true meta-comic for our age. Key track: “Popular Music,” in which Hamburger makes homophobia sound more like Dada than hate speech. (Jason Heller) David Cross, Shut Up You Fucking Baby! (2002) The explosion of so-called “indie comedy” in the ’00s can be traced pretty easily to David Cross. In the aftermath of 9/11, as the nation’s smartasses were reeling with conflicted feelings—horror about what happened, but trepidation about the dangerous and less dignified responses— Cross ditched comedy clubs and toured music venues in early 2002. September 11 and what followed created a deep comic well that Cross revisits several times over the course of the two-disc album that came from that tour. But it’s not all mocking Bush (“We’re all treating him like he came in third place in the Special Olympics”) and living in New York during the attacks. (“If Gabriel wants to Rollerblade, Gabriel Rollerblades. So fuck you, Mr. Osama bin Jerkhead!”) Cross also gets personal, talking about his Southern upbringing (another favorite topic), his family, Rickey Henderson, and more. Shut Up You Fucking Baby! found Cross at the height of his powers, and it set the stage for similarly minded comedians. Key track: “Playing Pool With My Wife” (all the titles are non sequiturs), where Cross offers a couple of anecdotes about living in New York during “the week football stopped.” (Kyle Ryan) Mitch Hedberg, Mitch All Together (2003) An overdose in 2005 cut Mitch Hedberg’s career short, just when it seemed to hit its stride. He released only two albums during his lifetime, Strategic Grill Locations and Mitch All Together . (A third, Do You Believe In Gosh , came out last year.) Hedberg’s simple one-liner style most closely resembles Steven Wright’s, but less bizarre and more focused on daily inanities (“You know crazy straws that go all over the place? These fucking straws are sane ”) delivered via Hedberg’s unmistakable stoner-guy drawl. It’s 17 tracks of one-liners and non sequiturs, with Hedberg commenting on his own act and often laughing at his screw-ups. It’s breezy, charming, and funny, which makes it an even bigger shame that there won’t be more of them. Key track: “Houses” finds Hedberg riffing on the dullest thing, but making it funny: “I bought a two-bedroom house, but I think it’s up to me how many bedrooms are in it, don’t you? This bedroom has an oven in it. Fuck you, real-estate lady!” (Kyle Ryan) Dave Attell, Skanks For The Memories (2003) Festooned with images of anonymous boob-flashing ladies, Dave Attell’s 2003 album allows snobbier listeners to enjoy the sleazy aftertaste of every comedy-club hack out there without actually feeling stupid. The track list even reads like the most clichéd stand-up set possible: “Flying,” “Homophobic,” “Condoms,” “Drugs,” “Dick Jokes,” and so forth. Yet even when he’s talking about Girls Gone Wild , Attell plays his bar-goon persona to deceptive advantage: “I like to play it backwards, ’cause then it looks like the girls have learned their lesson.” Maybe that element of surprise is what keeps Attell in charge of the unruly-sounding crowd. Or maybe it’s the sense that he’s right down in the seedy side of life with his audience, but makes it sound wondrous: “If I need directions, I’m not askin’ a man with one tooth. I’m asking a man with one leg, because he definitely knows the easiest way to get there. You won’t be hoppin’ fences, neither.” Key track: “Drinking Tips” proves that one of comedy’s oldest strip-mines still has a few nuggets to spare, and the advice is indeed sound. “Never get drunk when you’re wearing a hooded sweatshirt, ’cause you will eventually think there’s someone right behind you.” (Scott Gordon) Patton Oswalt, 222 (2004) The block of granite from which Patton Oswalt sculpted his exquisite debut, Feelin’ Kinda Patton , is a sprawling— 129 minutes over two discs!—drunken mess of hilarity. Yes, some bits fall flat (the opening comparing drug laws to playground rules doesn’t really catch on), and the best parts made it onto Feelin’ Kinda Patton , but the full version gives Oswalt room to explore funny tangents, and his off-the- cuff remarks often match his prepared material for laughs. The disc also features early versions of bits that would appear on the also-amazing Werewolves And Lollipops , and elsewhere in Oswalt’s act. Key track: Each disc only has one track. Take your pick and settle in. (Kyle Ryan) Eugene Mirman, The Absurd Nightclub Comedy Of (2004) Eugene Mirman could almost trick a crowd into believing that he scribbles out his comedy bits during regular noontime wake-and-bakes, but they’re actually remarkably well-crafted. His 2004 debut is the finest introduction to his peculiar comic language. He might agree: As of this year, Mirman’s sets still included such signature bits as this: “A lot of people think that kids say the darnedest things… but so would you if you had no education! You’d just be like, ‘I am bike cheese!’” Mirman takes childlike joy in ambushing life’s most dull, mundane alleys, and that gives him incredible freedom. His ear for the silly and the abrupt can transform seemingly ridiculous subject matter (the movie Teen Wolf , height requirements for theme-park rides, alchemists getting beat up by knights) into a chance to make words collide like drunken bumper cars: “I’m trying to make this candy into karate! Or whatever alchemists did that was more reasonable…” Key track: The easier something is for most people to ignore, the more potential it holds for a Mirman-style attack. “Shapes For Sale” questions ads that simply shill for entire categories of things (like pork or chicken) by introducing a campaign for shapes. “This is a heart: ‘I am a triangle with an ass on top. Please help!” (Scott Gordon) Chris Rock, (2005) As a product of the hip-hop generation, Chris Rock has internalized the staccato, aggressive rhythms of rap. There’s a foul-mouthed musicality to his delivery, a pugilistic poetry in the way he circles around punchlines, then swoops in for the kill. On Never Scared, the hilarious CD companion piece to his 2004 stand-up special, Rock discourses darkly on Michael Jackson and the difficulties of being a hip-hop apologist in the age of Lil Jon, but he saves his darkest, most penetrating insights for the special hell of marriage, from having well-meaning wives arrange “play dates” for their emasculated husbands to the agony of married-people dinner parties featuring “six neutered adults.” Rock’s hip-hop sensibility extends to littering the disc with skits that wear out their welcome the first time around, but the odd skippable track is a small price to pay for such trenchant wit. Key track: “Marriage,” of course. (Nathan Rabin) Various artists, Invite Them Up (2005) Outsiders may view it as a lack of quality control, but the way some of the decade’s best comedy records splay out over multiple discs is far more indicative of the casual, inclusive nature of the alt-comedy boom. This take-home version of Eugene Mirman and Bobby Tisdale’s sorely missed (but occasionally resurrected) showcase spans three CDs and one DVD, capturing experimenting veterans (Jon Benjamin brings David Cross onstage as a horrifying OB/GYN), comics testing new material (much of Mirman’s first-disc set would end up on his En Garde, Society ), and breakthrough larfs from young turks like Demetri Martin and Aziz Ansari. Ansari’s M.I.A. references won’t age well, but Invite Them Up ought to stand as a document of the past decade’s changing-of-the-vanguard in American stand-up. Key track: Jon Glaser’s contribution to disc one, an epistolary telling of his father’s fictional tenure in ZZ Top. What begins as a riff on storytelling stage shows like The Moth and Mortified quickly devolves into a list of rejected names for the band (The On Top Of Old Smokeys; TT Zop; When The Red, Red Robin Goes Top, Top, Topping Along) and a trashing of the band’s signature beards, underlined by the younger Glaser’s deadpan. (Erik Adams) Scharpling & Wurster, Hippy Justice (2005) The small, insular world of brainy radio comedy changed forever the night drummer extraordinaire Jon Wurster called Tom Scharpling on New Jersey’s WFMU pretending to be Ronald Thomas Clontle, the author of a comically ill-conceived, nonexistent music guide and “ultimate argument settler” called Rock, Rot & Rule. Since then, Wurster has been calling into WFMU as an endless array of deluded, aggressive, and hilarious characters. Hippy Justice, the duo’s magnum opus, collects six of those genius routines, including “Hippy Johnny,” about a tie-dyed tyrant who runs his pseudo-progressive business as a cross between the Manson Family ranch and a 19th-century sweatshop, to “Timmy Von Trimble,” a succinct bit about a two-inch-tall racist created by bigoted scientists. In the parlance of radio jocks, it’s all killer, no filler—and a wonderful introduction to two of the sharpest, most consistent minds in comedy. Key track: “Old Skull,” a genius routine about a creep who reunites prepubescent punk Old Skull as a New Age jazz combo. (Nathan Rabin) Brian Posehn, Live In: Nerd Rage (2006) As part of the cabal of Mr. Show alumni and the Comedians Of Comedy, Brian Posehn runs with a group that tends to attract a devoted, nerdy fan base—and he may be their king. He’s tall, gawky, and goofy-looking, with a voice like Frank Oz and a devotion to metal and Star Wars . Any nerd in the audience can look upon him and have hope for success in life, as Posehn has made a good living talking about metal, getting high, and other silliness. Live In: Nerd Rage has him expounding on those and other hilarious subjects—including a killer bit about his dog licking his wife’s vagina while she was on the toilet—and even performing a song called “Metal By Numbers” that mocks the metal-song template. Key track: “Nerd Rage/The Mattress Story,” in which Posehn describes his still-lingering hatred of jocks, and how it ends up reflecting poorly on him. (Kyle Ryan) Paul F. Tompkins, Impersonal (2007) Paul F. Tompkins fills out his dapper, loud suits with a mischievous grin and a megawatt sense of superiority on Impersonal , a collection of some older stand-up material. A bit like Wile E. Coyote speeding over a cliff’s edge but enjoying it, Tompkins launches epic satiric attacks on targets few people would bother thinking about, much less mocking. Perhaps the most ridiculous is his arch tearing- down of Sesame Street ’s inadequate Spanish-language instruction (“They needn’t have bothered !”), or a satire on those who died in the Irish Potato Famine. (“Are these the pickiest people, or what ?”) But the storytelling is there, as is Tompkins’ talent for needlessly stretching a bit far past its breaking point and making people love it. Key track: “Peanut Brittle” is the comedy equivalent of an absurdly long drum roll. As Tompkins puzzles over a new modern line of prank peanut-brittle cans, he takes every miniscule opportunity to build up the premise that peanut brittle is the most common thing on earth. In typical Tompkins fashion, the bit only gets funnier as it plows on and on. (Scott Gordon) Mike Birbiglia, My Secret Public Journal Live (2007) Prior to this album, genial, disarming comic Mike Birbiglia certainly wasn’t a slouch (see Two Drink Mike ), but his decision to take up comedic storytelling feels like a light bulb turning on. Birbiglia took tales garnered from his family, his childhood, and cringe-worthy stand-up gigs, and retold the shocking details in the calculated style of a master campfire storyteller, peppering them with conversational asides. At a cancer benefit, Birbiglia decided to tell some cancer jokes, which were met with groans. His hilarious, instantly regretful response: “I know… I’m in the future also.” Thus stories about porn viruses and inadvertently insulting blind people feel a lot more personal, and the laughter comes from a place of catharsis on Birbiglia’s behalf. He’s since gone on to open a successful Off-Broadway show called Sleepwalk With Me , containing similarly told stories about his sleepwalking disorder, but it’s on My Secret Public Journal Live that Birbiglia seems the most eager to play with the new format—and the surprising, compelling results speak for themselves. Key track: “Joe Bags,” about a summer job where he’s warmly welcomed because his brother used to work there. Turns out, the guy his co-workers are thinking of isn’t his brother. (Steve Heisler) Top 25 Best Stand Up Comedy Albums. Nowadays, technology has advanced so greatly that a person can watch a performance from the other side of the world as it happens. Everything is visual; the Ipad, touch screens and telephone's with no. Nowadays, technology has advanced so greatly that a person can watch a performance from the other side of the world as it happens. Everything is visual; the Ipad, touch screens and telephone's with no wires. Stand up comedy has found its way on the many different forms of mediums from TV to the internet. However, there was a time when the only way to watch your favorite stand up comedian was going to watch them live or buy the most recent comedy album….that's on old record player. Here some of the funniest and best stand up comedy albums. 25) Let's Get Small - . Recorded at the Boarding House in San Francisco, California, the album charted at number 10 on the Billboard Pop Album Charts and went Platinum. It also won the 1978 Grammy for Comedy Album of the year. Possibly more significant, the album features the routine "Excuse Me" which has gone on to become a universal catchphrase. 24) Relentless - Bill Hicks. This was Bill Hicks final album as he died in February of 1994 from pancreatic cancer. It was recorded from December 14 - 17 in 1991 in Montreal and released in 1992. 23) Bigger and Blacker - Chris Rock. The album was recorded at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem, New York as part of the HBO special that was also released. It not only contains stand up comedy, but also sketches and features guest appearance by Biz Markie, Wanda Sykes and ODB. This album won the 1999 Grammy for Comedy Album of the year. 22) Mitch All Together - Mitch Hedberg. Recorded May 2003 in Minneapolis, Minnesota at the Acme Comedy Club and was released later through . 21) To Russell, My Brother, Whom I slept with - . Recorded in Cleveland, Ohio and released in 1968, this would be a change for Cosby because instead of recording in an intimate location as he had in the past, this would be the first time in a larger venue. 20) Hail To The Freaks - Jen Kirkman. This was her second album following her debut album, Self Help . She recorded the album at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater on December 11, 2010 and it was released May 17, 2011. 19) Skanks for the Memories - Dave Attell. The album was released through Comedy Central records on February 4, 2003 and recorded in Denver at the Comedy Works. 18) The Carnegie Hall Performance - . At the 49th Grammy awards the album won the best Comedy album. 17) Shut Up, You ******* Baby! - David Cross. The Album was released November 5, 2002 and contains material from performances in Portland and his home town Atlanta. It was nominated for The Grammy Comedy Album of the year in 2004. 16) It's Bad for Ya - George Carlin. It's Bad for Ya was the final comedy album by George Carlin and his final HBO special that aired from the Wells Fargo Center in Santa Rosa, California on March 1, 2008. The performance was released as a CD on July 29, 2008. The special aired less than four months before his death at 71. The album won the Grammy from Comedy of the Year in 2008. 15) Cutting - Amy Schumer. The album was released April 25, 2011 and was her debut album. 14) Richard Pryor: Live On Sunset Strip - Richard Pryor. Released on March 24, 1982 the album features Pryor discussing his drug addiction and he talks about the night when he was freebasing and set himself on fire. The album was his most successful financially and it won him the 1982 Grammy Comedy Album of the year. 13) Dangerous - Bill Hicks. The album was recorded at the famed Caroline's in New York City in 1990 and was his first live stand up comedy album. 12) Strategic Grill Locations - Mitch Hedberg. The album was recorded September 7, 1999 in Houston, Texas at the Laff Stop Comedy club. He was known for his one-liners that were sometimes related to other jokes but often times weren't. Initially, he sold the album himself through his website. 11) - Lewis Black. Lewis Black recorded Stark Raving Black on August 2, 2009 at the famed Fillmore in Detroit Michigan. It was recorded and released as both a film and album with the album wining the 2010 Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album. 10) A Night at the Met - Robin Williams. The album was recorded in New York City at the Metropolitan Opera House in 1986. It was one of his last big comedy performances at the time before he was moving into film. The album won the 1988 Grammy for Comedy Album of the year. 9) Never Scared - Chris Rock. Chris Rock's highly successful Never Scared won him the 2006 Grammy Award for best Comedy Album. The album was recorded March 24th and 26th for an HBO Special. The CD version was released February 15, 2005. 8) Taste This - Ellen DeGeneres. The album was released October 1, 1996 and charted at number 30 on the Billboard Heatseekers list. It remains one of her best known stand up performances. 7) FM & AM - George Carlin. This album is significant because it served as the transition of George Carlin from clean shaven and clean material to the hippie growing his hair long and embracing the counterculture for which he would be known for. The album was recorded at The Cellar Door in Washington, D.C in 1971 and was released in 1972. The A side features his old clean routine which he slightly mocks and the B side features the outspoken material he would become famous for. The album won the 1972 Grammy for Comedy Album of the year. 6) Hilarious - Louis CK. Recorded at the Pabst Theatre in Milwaukee, Hilarious is Louis CK's third album and a film featuring the performance. The film premiered at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival and the album was released January 11, 2011 and won the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album that year. The album contains the very popular "Everything is perfect and nobody is happy." 5) Revenge - Bill Cosby. Revenge is one of Bill Cosby's best known albums mainly because of the introduction of one of his best characters, Fat Albert. This was his fifth album and was recorded in Harrah's, Lake Tahoe. The album won the Grammy for best Comedy album in 1968. 4) Calm Down Gurl - . Kathy Griffin performed this album live on Bravo on August 6, 2013 from the Wells Fargo Centre in Santa Rosa, California and was later released as an album. The album won Comedy of the Year at the 2014 Grammy Awards. 3) That ******'s Crazy - Richard Pryor. One of Richard Pryor's most successful comedy albums, it won the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album in 1974 and charted at number 1 on the Billboard R & B/Soul albums list. The Album was recorded at Don Cornelius's Soul Train Nightclub. 2) - Steve Martin. Not only is this one of Steve Martin's most successful albums, but it's one of the most successful Comedy albums to ever be released. The album was recorded in 1978 and takes place in two separate venues, first the smaller and more intimate The Boarding House in San Francisco, California and midway switches over to the much bigger and open Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Denver. The album won the 1979 Grammy Award for Comedy Album of the year; it charted number 2 on the Billboard Pop albums list and was certified double platinum. 1) Class Clown - George Carlin. Class Clown is considered by many, to be one of the greatest and most influential comedy albums released. The album was recorded in Santa Monica, California on May 27, 1972 and contains what is one of the most controversial and famous comedy routines, "Seven Words You Can't Say on Television." This bit caused so much controversy that after performing at the Summerfest in Milwaukee, Carlin was arrested upon leaving the stage. The album contains routines and stories about his childhood, as well as his feelings on the Vietnam War. George Carlin died on June 22, 2008 of heart failure in Santa Monica, California, the same city he recorded the now legendary Class Clown. Media Funhouse. The blog for the cult Manhattan cable-access TV show that offers viewers the best in "everything from high art to low trash. and back again!" Find links to rare footage, original reviews, and reflections on pop culture and arthouse cinema. Friday, July 17, 2009. Vintage Stand-up Comedy: my new favorite blog. I am a junkie for several things, among them novelty songs and comedy albums. The novelty tunes I’ll go into another time, but as a comedy-LP fanatic, I need to heartily recommend this gent Jim and his Vintage Stand-up Comedy blog. Over the years I’ve amassed a pretty decent collection of comedy on vinyl and CD, but the blogspot “sharity” phenomenon has now made it possible for older fans — the kind who aren’t frequenting BitTorrent — to delve into other’s “stashes” of rare vinyl. What could formerly only be obtained only through trades of audio tapes with fellow collectors, now is available on the Net, to anyone who has an RAR extractor (free download, for both PC and Mac) and the time to listen. The thing about comedy records — true of any collectible item, really — is that they generally fall into two categories: the ones you will actively engage with over the years, replay and laugh at again in the future; and those you’re acquiring because they’re just so damned rare or so damned weird, or they are literally the only title by that particular person. The offerings on the Vintage Stand-up blog fall neatly into those slots, and since they do, I’ll offer two clumps of recommendations. The must-haves were generally available at one time on CD in some permutation or other (as with Woody Allen’s ever-changing two-LP set, or Nichols and May’s “best of”), but most comedy albums haven’t stayed in print for too long in any format. Thus, you have the Essentials, as TCM calls them. Blogger Jim G and his friend, known simply as “Big Cheeze,” have put up albums that are must- listens by Woody Allen, Brooks and Reiner, Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Cheech and Chong, Lenny Bruce, , , Nicholas and May, , Bill Hicks, , Moms Mabley, Redd Foxx, Jackie Mason, Lord Buckley, Steve Allen, and Ruth Wallis … just to name a few. Then you have the oddities and rarities that have been posted. They may only been for the stout-hearted, comprehensive collector, but among the group there are a few that I’ve been pleasantly surprised by (read: they were actually very funny). Many are worth having in some form just because they are so insanely rare, and if I haven’t noted it up to this point, the key here is that Jim (and Cheeze, presumably) are making these available through their “rips” from vinyl (you can hear the surface noise as the needle touches down, babies). There are also posts of things that are true rarities: the “Live at the Playboy Club” Moms Mabley album posted isn’t that commercially available CD, it’s a montage that was made for satellite radio that includes cuts from that album, plus various other rare Moms material. The same is true of the Brother Theodore comp that Cheeze put up, which includes a whole performance and several other things including the audio of a Letterman appearance. These bits of sharity are perhaps the nicest on the blog, since they don’t constitute any particular “score” at a record shop, but rather are the spoils of a collector’s longtime obsession. Thus, I will spotlight some of the more obscure things put up on Vintage Stand-up Comedy. Including the one and only album by Paul Lynde. It includes a bit that has the word “rape” in it (not heard that often on an older comedy LP), plus that strangled, sarcastic laugh that became Paul’s truest comic legacy. Since GSN dumped all its b&w programming into oblivion (and they’re getting such great late-night ratings as a result, haven’t you heard? Through the roof!), I’ve been jonesing for some Henry Morgan, and Jim has nicely obliged. This is a short LP (unavailable on CD, need I add) that is mostly focused on Morgan’s commercial parodies). I have been a hardcore fan of Father Guido Sarducci, Don Novello’s alter ego, since I first saw him singing in the confessional on the 1970s “comeback” Smothers Brothers comedy show. Novello is wonderfully funny (check out his Laszlo Toth books if you’re anywhere near the humor section of a well-stocked bookstore), but there have only been two comedy LPs by him in the last 30 years. Godfrey Cambridge is a comic who has lived on more through the movies he did ( Watermelon Man, Cotton Comes to Harlem ) than through his stand-up. This is a recording (I’m not sure if it actually was a released LP or is just a tape that’s circulated) of Cambridge doing a great set in Las Vegas, that includes a mention of one of my all-time favorite films he participated in (one of the ultimate New Yorker movies, Sidney Lumet’s small and PERFECT Bye Bye Braverman ), as well as some very funny material about gambling, traveling to Italy, and losing weight. And since we’re on a fat kick, let’s mention “King Tut” himself, the terrific character actor Victor Buono. I’ve never quite gotten my mind around the fact that he was in his early 20s when he did …Baby Jane? , in his late 20 when he was on Batman , and was dead at 44. His one and only comedy LP contains a number of poems about being fat that he had recited on The Tonight Show . There are none of those appearances uploaded to YouTube, but you can find the best cut from this album, and a tribute video made by his nephew (the singer on the vid, who is not a Buono relative, sounds a whole lot like my perennial fave flower-child singer Melanie) And, since I’m going to be fair and honest here, here is an absolutely awful album that I am so glad I heard. Will I ever listen to it again? That’s a good question, but I had heard about it, and being able to sample insult comic Fat Jack E. Leonard’s nasty 1957 “tribute” to rock ’n’ roll, which consists of him mostly barking out lyrics to half-baked r’n’r song parodies, was something I needed to do. It was my sort of very “happy pain.” For that I must, er, thank, Jim and Cheez.