Download Comedy Albums SPIN’S 40 Greatest Comedy Albums of All Time
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
download comedy albums SPIN’s 40 Greatest Comedy Albums of All Time. Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Patton Oswalt 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. Robin Williams. A Night at the Met (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) Liberation. Jettisoning the rest of the band but keeping the name, Neil Hannon as the Divine Comedy becomes as art pop as it gets with his first full album, but with an extreme Englishness that even Ray Davies might be hard-pressed to keep up with. Liberation is mostly a self-composed and performed release, aside from a couple of string players, a French horn performer, and a drummer, plus a song lyric borrowed from Wordsworth, giving "Lucy" a crisp, gentle rock recasting here. Otherwise it's Hannon's hyper-elegant show all the way, practically begging to be equally played in a Victorian drawing room, at a swank '20s club, at a swinging beautiful people party in London, or at an end-of-the-century Britpop disco. Slightly more rock/poppy tunes like "Bernice Bobs Her Hair" groove along with MOR backing vocals and understated energy, while others pile on the artsy touches: the harpsichord underlying the entirety of "Death of a Supernaturalist" and the mournful string arrangement that provides all of the music on "Timewatching." A few songs rock in a more straightforward manner, but often only just so: "I Was Born Yesterday" interrupts its persistent pounding with a spoken word break referring to ballerinas and standing en pointe while a cello plays; the acoustic guitar-based "Victoria Falls" has a fragile, frosty feeling to it. Hannon, meanwhile, belies his Northern Ireland upbringing to an astounding degree with his clipped, toff singing style. As for subject matter, Hannon tackles everything from borrowing "Your Daddy's Car" to the jaunty, XTC-inspired "The Pop Star's Fear of the Pollen Count," slipping in as much wry humor as he does gentle pathos and reflection -- plenty of all three. "Europop" is particularly sharp -- a self-descriptive new wave synth-plus-guitar dance tune with rather lugubrious vocals from Hannon, reflecting on everything from science and finance to the strange nature of love. 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 - Steve Martin. 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 Comedy Central records. 21) To Russell, My Brother, Whom I slept with - Bill Cosby. 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 - Lewis Black. 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.