The Case For Humor in Music
"What can be considered human emotions? Surely not only lyricism, sadness, tragedy?
Doesn't laughter also have a claim to that lofty title?
I want to fight for the legitimate right of laughter in 'serious' music."
Doesn't laughter also have a claim to that lofty title?
I want to fight for the legitimate right of laughter in 'serious' music."
- Dmitri Shostakovich
The very first sentence I wrote in the only essay I wrote attached to the only application that I completed for admission to an Institution of Higher Learning was, "I like to make people laugh." I think, since then, I've written far more essays than I've made people laugh; I am very unoriginal, not at all clever, and (it turns out) not very likable. Though I would not have admitted any of those things years ago when I wrote that sentence, their relevance seems quite ironic to me now.
I was (eventually) accepted to the aforementioned University, where I (sort of) studied music. Now I know (a little bit) more about music than I did then, but I am still the unoriginal, unclever, unoriginal, unfunny dude I was six years ago.
Since I know you're waiting to hear how this is all "ironically relevant," I'll go ahead and tell you: knowing just a little bit about music, and trying to be funny whilst using my musical abilities, I've become very much not unlike the "Comedic Musicians" of the Era Vulgaris.
I'll get to that, don't worry.
ANYWAYS, (I'll get to that, too,) humorous music seems to me to be a rather modern achievement, and it usually falls short. Filmed in 2000, the episode of Comedy Central Presents... featuring ("comedian") Dane Cook has become one of the most popular episodes of the decade. Nowadays, it's Bo Burnham's. Fortunately for us sensible people, neither of these two gentleman are as funny as they would like us to believe.
With no regard to how un-funny Dane Cook is, Bo Burnham is just a watered-down and less clever (though more talented) version of Stephen Lynch, who was the forerunner for guys like the equally clever and talented (though less original) Jon Lajoie, who tries too hard to be like (the awesomely funny and sometimes musical) Zach Galifianakis or the (awesomely musical and sometimes funny) Ben Folds, but can't compete with the far more talented and far more original (though less prominent) Demetri Martin or Liam Lynch, who is sort of like a shorter, and (if you can believe it) nerdier version of Weird Al Yankovic with more modern glasses and who sometimes wears a hat and is far more funny than that (fucking) Pachelbel's Rant doofus, who is not unlike Axis of Awesome (who are actually awesome,) but who has done work with Tenacious D, who likely formed as a response to the annoying Group X, which lead to groups like the (un-funny) Flight of the Concords (or are they just The Concords?) and The (less un-funny) Lonely Island (who are probably not lonely) who should really really take notes from a legitimate act like Hard N' Phirm, or even from the novelty act of Garfunkel and Oates, and not from Stand-up-comedians-who-sometimes-do-music like Mike Birbiglia (who was a douchebag to me, btw) and (ugh) Larry The Cable Guy (whom I've never met), or the comedian-turned-actor-turned-back-to-comedy-but-with-music guys like Adam Sandler and Rodney Carrington, and just try to write a funny joke that isn't old two seconds later and hasn't been heard before.
I don't want to talk about any of those people, because they're not really that funny, at least not as musicians.
I don't really want to talk about unintentionally funny music, either, like Metallica's St. Anger, which is an entire album recorded with one of the world's best-known (though certainly not best) drummers thinking it would be a good idea not to turn the fucking snares on his snare drum on. But. There's a scene in the film "Some Kind of Monster" where, during the recording of said album, James Hetfield jokes about "whipping an album 'into shape'" like they "did on Load and Re-Load." There's also a scene in that movie where Mr. Hetfield tells the previously-mentioned drummer that he's used to "a drummer" doing "the beat part," who responds by later screaming "fuck" into his lead vocalist's face and storming out of the room. Even some of the best have errors in judgment every now and then, and I'm sure their laughing their fuck-ups all the way to the bank.
I am sure that the many, if not all, of the artists I've already mentioned are indeed quite hilarious if heard in person; there's no way in hell I'd pass up a ticket to see any one of them, and I'd see Stephen Lynch twice on a Sunday. There is very little that tops a live performance of music, and even less that tops a live performance of humorous music. At my senior recital to graduate college, I changed ties in between the three pieces that I played. Normally, this wouldn't be a big deal, except when my dad noticed it, he SHOUT-whispered it from the front row, and before I could play the first note of the last piece, I burst out laughing. Sadly there is no recording of this. Less sadly, this past Monday, I saw the most awesome, the most ballsy, one of the funniest things I've ever witnessed, and certainly one of the most enjoyable.
My buddy B-Mac entered a Guy's Beauty Pageant, and his talent was to sing a song from "The Hangover," asking what tigers dream of, when they take a little tiger snooze. He then took that same melody, and re-wrote the lyrics to say why he should be allowed into an all-female Music Service Fraternity, or, as he called it an "Awesome sister-hood." Despite the fact that the lyrics were clever, original and personal, and despite the fact that the performance tugged at both the heart-strings and the funny-nerves, B-Mac did not win. You want proof that life isn't fair? Here it is.
Sadly, oftentimes the cleverness of the music is overshadowed by the (un)cleverness of the lyrics. Take Stephen Lynch, for example. He's a great singer, and a super-funny guy. But all of his songs, although they all have different messages or jokes, sound the same because he only knows six guitar chords. Jon Lajoie, even though he can write three different songs that all sound different, they're watered down by the same message, and the lyrics get old. We get it. You're just a regular, every-day normal guy. Although, to be fair, I have watched the sun go down, thinking about the world spinning 'round, high as fuck, so I can sort of relate to his song-writing.
Kyle Gass is a fantastic, awesomely-classically-trained guitarist, but the cleverness of Tenacious D's music comes from Dave Grohl on drums, who, in all likelihood, is just fucking around; there is a time-change in the song "Master Exploder," but you won't hear it unless you are listening to only the drums. There is a HUGE feel-change, caused by the drums in the Motion City Soundtrack version of the Doug Loves Movie theme song. It's so "bad" that they only used that song three or four times, because no one could clap to it, even though the change really only happens in the feel of the song, and not the meter as Doug Benson likes to (erroneously) point out. This same sort of thing happens in the song "Little Sister," but I won't get into what a genius Josh Homme is, both musically and lyrically, or even comically. I'll just go ahead and say that titling an album Era Vulgaris, then writing music that is so far ahead of its time that no one notices is nothing short of Advanced. (A call-back AND an explanation to two previous references in the same sentence?!?! I am Batman.) I will also say that Josh Homme is my number-one man crush.
My number-two man crush is Jason Segel, from How I Met Your Mother, but who also wrote most of the music to the movie Get Him to the Greek. The title is annoying, and the movie only sort of is, but the music for it is not. For example, the song, "Going Up," is only sort of about not letting The Man get you down. It's really about not putting your tongue into a girl's hoo-ha. But that's beside the point. The point is the cleverness of the music. The chorus to this song is just the line, "I'm coming up," four times. Only on the fourth time does the melody ACTUALLY go up, thereby ironically stating going down on your girlfriend is not the most pleasant of experiences, but it is an important experience, and one that you can't really avoid, amirite, ladies?
And, like my friend B-Mac, and someone I'll never meet, Jason Segel is capable of writing a song that both tugs at your heart, and makes you laugh at the exact same time, so much so that you almost feel like a moron. The fourth song on the soundtrack for Get Him to the Greek sounds a little like a Poison power-ballad at first, and begins with the line, "Another night you're on my mind, I'm hypnotized but I cannot find the signs..." The music is nothing short of epic, and leads to a grand entrance of the chorus: "Will you come for my bangers, my beans and mash?"
Now, here I am, just like my comedically-musical associates, drooling in the dark, staring at the lights; I'm convinced that only the dude who (probably) wrote "You Just Got Slapped" in about 12 seconds, spent a lot less time on this song than logic would dictate, and came up with both a more emotional and far more funny, original, clever and likable product than I ever could.
Since I know you're waiting to hear how this is all "ironically relevant," I'll go ahead and tell you: knowing just a little bit about music, and trying to be funny whilst using my musical abilities, I've become very much not unlike the "Comedic Musicians" of the Era Vulgaris.
I'll get to that, don't worry.
ANYWAYS, (I'll get to that, too,) humorous music seems to me to be a rather modern achievement, and it usually falls short. Filmed in 2000, the episode of Comedy Central Presents... featuring ("comedian") Dane Cook has become one of the most popular episodes of the decade. Nowadays, it's Bo Burnham's. Fortunately for us sensible people, neither of these two gentleman are as funny as they would like us to believe.
With no regard to how un-funny Dane Cook is, Bo Burnham is just a watered-down and less clever (though more talented) version of Stephen Lynch, who was the forerunner for guys like the equally clever and talented (though less original) Jon Lajoie, who tries too hard to be like (the awesomely funny and sometimes musical) Zach Galifianakis or the (awesomely musical and sometimes funny) Ben Folds, but can't compete with the far more talented and far more original (though less prominent) Demetri Martin or Liam Lynch, who is sort of like a shorter, and (if you can believe it) nerdier version of Weird Al Yankovic with more modern glasses and who sometimes wears a hat and is far more funny than that (fucking) Pachelbel's Rant doofus, who is not unlike Axis of Awesome (who are actually awesome,) but who has done work with Tenacious D, who likely formed as a response to the annoying Group X, which lead to groups like the (un-funny) Flight of the Concords (or are they just The Concords?) and The (less un-funny) Lonely Island (who are probably not lonely) who should really really take notes from a legitimate act like Hard N' Phirm, or even from the novelty act of Garfunkel and Oates, and not from Stand-up-comedians-who-sometimes-do-music like Mike Birbiglia (who was a douchebag to me, btw) and (ugh) Larry The Cable Guy (whom I've never met), or the comedian-turned-actor-turned-back-to-comedy-but-with-music guys like Adam Sandler and Rodney Carrington, and just try to write a funny joke that isn't old two seconds later and hasn't been heard before.
I don't want to talk about any of those people, because they're not really that funny, at least not as musicians.
I don't really want to talk about unintentionally funny music, either, like Metallica's St. Anger, which is an entire album recorded with one of the world's best-known (though certainly not best) drummers thinking it would be a good idea not to turn the fucking snares on his snare drum on. But. There's a scene in the film "Some Kind of Monster" where, during the recording of said album, James Hetfield jokes about "whipping an album 'into shape'" like they "did on Load and Re-Load." There's also a scene in that movie where Mr. Hetfield tells the previously-mentioned drummer that he's used to "a drummer" doing "the beat part," who responds by later screaming "fuck" into his lead vocalist's face and storming out of the room. Even some of the best have errors in judgment every now and then, and I'm sure their laughing their fuck-ups all the way to the bank.
I am sure that the many, if not all, of the artists I've already mentioned are indeed quite hilarious if heard in person; there's no way in hell I'd pass up a ticket to see any one of them, and I'd see Stephen Lynch twice on a Sunday. There is very little that tops a live performance of music, and even less that tops a live performance of humorous music. At my senior recital to graduate college, I changed ties in between the three pieces that I played. Normally, this wouldn't be a big deal, except when my dad noticed it, he SHOUT-whispered it from the front row, and before I could play the first note of the last piece, I burst out laughing. Sadly there is no recording of this. Less sadly, this past Monday, I saw the most awesome, the most ballsy, one of the funniest things I've ever witnessed, and certainly one of the most enjoyable.
My buddy B-Mac entered a Guy's Beauty Pageant, and his talent was to sing a song from "The Hangover," asking what tigers dream of, when they take a little tiger snooze. He then took that same melody, and re-wrote the lyrics to say why he should be allowed into an all-female Music Service Fraternity, or, as he called it an "Awesome sister-hood." Despite the fact that the lyrics were clever, original and personal, and despite the fact that the performance tugged at both the heart-strings and the funny-nerves, B-Mac did not win. You want proof that life isn't fair? Here it is.
Sadly, oftentimes the cleverness of the music is overshadowed by the (un)cleverness of the lyrics. Take Stephen Lynch, for example. He's a great singer, and a super-funny guy. But all of his songs, although they all have different messages or jokes, sound the same because he only knows six guitar chords. Jon Lajoie, even though he can write three different songs that all sound different, they're watered down by the same message, and the lyrics get old. We get it. You're just a regular, every-day normal guy. Although, to be fair, I have watched the sun go down, thinking about the world spinning 'round, high as fuck, so I can sort of relate to his song-writing.
Kyle Gass is a fantastic, awesomely-classically-trained guitarist, but the cleverness of Tenacious D's music comes from Dave Grohl on drums, who, in all likelihood, is just fucking around; there is a time-change in the song "Master Exploder," but you won't hear it unless you are listening to only the drums. There is a HUGE feel-change, caused by the drums in the Motion City Soundtrack version of the Doug Loves Movie theme song. It's so "bad" that they only used that song three or four times, because no one could clap to it, even though the change really only happens in the feel of the song, and not the meter as Doug Benson likes to (erroneously) point out. This same sort of thing happens in the song "Little Sister," but I won't get into what a genius Josh Homme is, both musically and lyrically, or even comically. I'll just go ahead and say that titling an album Era Vulgaris, then writing music that is so far ahead of its time that no one notices is nothing short of Advanced. (A call-back AND an explanation to two previous references in the same sentence?!?! I am Batman.) I will also say that Josh Homme is my number-one man crush.
My number-two man crush is Jason Segel, from How I Met Your Mother, but who also wrote most of the music to the movie Get Him to the Greek. The title is annoying, and the movie only sort of is, but the music for it is not. For example, the song, "Going Up," is only sort of about not letting The Man get you down. It's really about not putting your tongue into a girl's hoo-ha. But that's beside the point. The point is the cleverness of the music. The chorus to this song is just the line, "I'm coming up," four times. Only on the fourth time does the melody ACTUALLY go up, thereby ironically stating going down on your girlfriend is not the most pleasant of experiences, but it is an important experience, and one that you can't really avoid, amirite, ladies?
And, like my friend B-Mac, and someone I'll never meet, Jason Segel is capable of writing a song that both tugs at your heart, and makes you laugh at the exact same time, so much so that you almost feel like a moron. The fourth song on the soundtrack for Get Him to the Greek sounds a little like a Poison power-ballad at first, and begins with the line, "Another night you're on my mind, I'm hypnotized but I cannot find the signs..." The music is nothing short of epic, and leads to a grand entrance of the chorus: "Will you come for my bangers, my beans and mash?"
Now, here I am, just like my comedically-musical associates, drooling in the dark, staring at the lights; I'm convinced that only the dude who (probably) wrote "You Just Got Slapped" in about 12 seconds, spent a lot less time on this song than logic would dictate, and came up with both a more emotional and far more funny, original, clever and likable product than I ever could.
