Best Comedy Albums

When people talk about smart comedy with a message most of them say George Carlin. I can dig that. George Carlin said a lot of great stuff, but he never made me laugh. It was clap comedy. I agreed with everything he said, but it never tickled me.

Bill Hicks makes me laugh and he's right behind Carlin, if not tied with him, for most insightful. Bill is kind of a stand-up Kurt Vonnegut. He was smart, got a little crude sometimes and promoted peace. That was always Bill's underlying message, he was talking shit on humanity because he wanted us to get our act together.

Rant in E-Minor was Bill's last album before he died. When he made it he knew he had cancer, so he just lets loose. No fear. Taking down everything and this was in the mid '90s before every comedian started taking on religion, abortion and government. It was still pretty fresh. Oh, and remember a few years ago, all the stuff with Conan O'Brien and the Jay Leno hate swelled. Bill had a bit about Leno commmiting suicide with an Uzi back in '97.

All of his work is amazing. Listen to everything you can.

Paul F. Tompkins is one of the funniest people alive. He was on Mr. Show, he's the Mayor of Podcasting and he's a great comedian. Over the past decade his stand-up material has shifted from exaggerated, absurd bits to much more personal stories. I always preferred his his less personal stuff which is why one of my favorite albums is his first: Impersonal. The Peanut Brittle bit is something that will always make me laugh.



All his stuff is great, but after Impersonal his "Laboring Under Delusions" set is his next best.

John Mulaney's two albums, "New in Town" and "The Top Part", are enough to convince me he's a comedy genius. This man crafts jokes like an artisan. He tells stories like he's Raymond Carver. He blows most of the competition out of the water. It's hard for me to just pick one clip of his to share, because there's so many amazing bits.

Okay, this might not be my favorite Smothers Brothers album, but I'm too lazy to upload more albums to Listal right now.

I'm not crazy about the comedy stylings of the past. It's not that they're necessarily bad, but it all feels so samey. Comedy was a different beast back in the day. There's two notable exceptions to my dislike: Bob Newhart and the Smothers Brothers.

They're basically a vaudeville act. They play folk music, sometimes they do it straight, sometimes it's a funny song, often they do comedy bits in between. And it's absolutely hilarious. I don't know what it is. It's very tame comedy, but, like Newhart, they sell it so well. They've created these characters and they just go out there and get it.They have a level of absurdity that seems unusual for the time.

The quintessential SB bit is "Mom Always Liked You Best," but sadly it's not on YouTube. This track does a good job of showing how silly they were:



Some of my favorite Smothers Brothers bits are the ones that require some knowledge of folk music. Their version of The Streets of Laredo is one of the funniest things I've heard (and the rest of the track is pretty funny too). But the best is their version of "Tom Dooley" which Tommy claims was written by Dick and stolen by The Kingston Trio. Even if you've never heard the song and the names mean nothing, it's still pretty great.

Patton is kind of a paragon of the current comedy scene. He's smart, he's a storyteller, his bits get weird and dirty, but there's heart, truth and the wish for humanity to be better than it is in there.

He's a very prolific comedian and there's a wealth of his material out there, but Werewolves and Lollipops is easily his best. I went to wikipedia to remind myself of what tracks were on the album and was blown away, "Wow, all of these were on the same album?"

There's a lot of amazing tracks, so I'll pick on that's kind of unique. Patton is telling this very involved story, it's really personal and it's kind of a slow moment. And someone makes an obnoxious noise during it and what Patton does is absolutely fucking beautiful:

Louis CK is another paragon of comedy. He might be the most popular comedian in the world right now. His show is one of the most critically acclaimed on TV. He's a champion of the little guy and he's pioneering new ways of distributing his material.

And he's hilarious. Like Patton, there's so much stuff out there. Louis throws out his current set after every tour or album and builds a new one. Plus, there's all the stuff he does on his TV show.

Chewed Up is probably my favorite, but this clip isn't from Chewed Up. It's from his TV show:

Kinane's second album, Whiskey Icarus is great. His comedy is often absurd and dark, with flashes of booze and depression as he rails against the bizarre world around him. From describing his thought process while getting dinner at 7-11 to an examination of crushing loneliness to the hilarious 8 minute dissection of a man next to him eating pancakes out of a plastic bag on an airplane. He can blend intelligent jokes with the lowest humor, like when he posits that Henry David Thoreau went to Walden pond to experiment with putting Twizzlers in buttholes.

It also has the best, most poetic description of a DUI: "Whiskey Icarus flew too close to the sun."

If you only listen to one bit on this list, I recommend this one. It kills so hard it's amazing.

The master of the one-liner. I know there are people who don't like Mitch, but I think that group his very small. His comedy is universal. It's just jokes. They're fast and short and weird.

The character of Neil Hamburger (played by Gregg Turkington) is fascinating. The best way to describe many of his albums is experimental. Neil Hamburger is a hack comedian. He has stupid catchphrases, his jokes are awful, he's constantly clearing his throat directly into the microphone and his life is a mess.

This album was recorded in front of an audience waiting to see Tenacious D. Comedians don't normally do well opening for rock bands, even comedy rock bands. And Neil Hamburger just trolls them so hard. And they hate him and he just keeps doing this really lame, super offensive material. And it's hilarious.

I can't find anything from Hot February Night on YouTube, but there are a lot of clips. The problem is Neil Hamburger is a little less fun when he has a crowd that's there to see him.

David Cross used to be the King of Alternative Comedy. Along with Bob Odenkirk, he was the star of Mr. Show, he was on Arrested Development and he was a great stand-up comedian. Then he fell from grace because after a career of shitting on people for making terrible things for money he went and acted in the Chipmunks movies for money.

He's still a good comedian and I love this album. Most people cite his first album "Shut Up, You Fucking Baby," but this is the one for me. Jokes about politics, religion, useless products, shit music, decadence and bestiality. This came out when the War in Iraq was really heating up so Cross had a lot of fodder.

The Sklars are notable if only because of how unique they are. You don't see a lot of comedy duos any more and you never ones that are twins. You can tell that these guys have lived their lives together because of how effortlessly they jive on stage.

They have a few albums, I think Sklar Maps is their best. They're also great podcast guests. I couldn't find much off their albums, except for this: