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March 29, 2024, 11:52:01 AM

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funny music

Started by bollocks, April 18, 2018, 03:40:47 PM

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bollocks

we all know that music's not funny, i.e. stewart lee leaving a guitar onstage to demonstrate this. with that in mind - what music is actually funny? i think denim, ween, and the flight of the conchords.


ajsmith2

I fucking HATE and always will hate the attitude that 'comedy songs aren't funny' or humour doesn't work in music. To me, that's as nonsensical as 'comedy films aren't funny' or 'you know what I hate? Those comedy tv shows'. Comedy in music can be as good or as bad as comedy in any other medium. What is this bizzare idea that music should be pure and unpolluted by comedy that some people have in their noggins?

bgmnts

https://youtu.be/16RCvtziXj0

This piece of music instantly makes me see Randy Marsh high on weed and bouncing around on his own massive bollocks. I think thats funny.

Also those two girls make funny songs but cant member there names right now. One has an Italian name and a weird face

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

Spinal Tap would seem to be an obvious one but, on reflection, the songs themselves (at least those from the film) aren't all that funny out of context.

Quote from: bgmnts on April 18, 2018, 03:48:18 PM
Also those two girls make funny songs but cant member there names right now. One has an Italian name and a weird face
Garfunkle and Oates.

bollocks

sorry, not saying songs are never funny - just saying that often they aren't. i think songs can be hilarious a lot of the time, just curious to see what you guys thought

Utter Shit

South Park is brilliant for comedy songs. This one is probably my favourite and it doesn't even have any lyrics.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6f6P5Ceuc4

On a related note, the songs from The Book of Mormon are all brilliant, particularly Turn It Off, Making Things Up Again, Sal Tlay Ka Siti and Joseph Smith American Moses.

Lil Dicky is fantastic at making funny hip-hop that stands up to repeat listens - his latest track Freaky Friday has taken him mainstream but my favourite of his back catalogue is Lemme Freak, which perfectly skewers the braggadocio of rap music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocGiulPm3IU

EDIT: Obviously Lonely Island are great too.

Cuellar

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on April 18, 2018, 03:52:11 PM
Spinal Tap would seem to be an obvious one but, on reflection, the songs themselves (at least those from the film) aren't all that funny out of context.

"Working on a sex farm", I would posit, is a funny line in or out of context. Does that make it a funny song? Dunno.

ajsmith2

Quote from: bollocks on April 18, 2018, 03:52:49 PM
sorry, not saying songs are never funny - just saying that often they aren't. i think songs can be hilarious a lot of the time, just curious to see what you guys thought

No bother, I wasn't getting at you with my post above, but the times i've heard that opinion wheeled out as gospel by folks over the years. I would like to find out where that opinion comes from.

Is it cos music is generally relistened to more than you rewatch films or tv or re read books and therefore the joke is killed through familiarity? Maybe, I mean, I'd take that argument on board, I just don't generally agree with it. Repetition and familiarity are key to some comedy.

Sgt. Duckie


Do like a bit of Kunt & the Gang.

I haven't listened to Kevin Bloody Wilson since I was a nipper but his tapes used to have me howling.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

Quote from: Cuellar on April 18, 2018, 03:55:48 PM
"Working on a sex farm", I would posit, is a funny line in or out of context. Does that make it a funny song? Dunno.

Sex Farm
is funny for sure. Nigel's spoken intro to Stone'enge is good too: "No one knows who they were, or _ what they were doing."

For the most part though, I'd say much of the humour tends to spring from how well observed the parodies are.

Cuellar

Can a chord change in and of itself be funny? A combination of two words which are separately not particularly funny can be hilarious. Can going from one chord to another be similarly hilarious? Taken alone, not as an accompaniment to a visual image or a piece of text. I suppose there are far fewer chords than there are words. But notes in general, then. Can a string of notes be funny?

People say Beethoven's 8th Symphony is full of gags, but let me tell ya, I sure wasn't laughing.

Petey Pate

Quote from: ajsmith2 on April 18, 2018, 03:46:53 PM
I fucking HATE and always will hate the attitude that 'comedy songs aren't funny' or humour doesn't work in music. To me, that's as nonsensical as 'comedy films aren't funny' or 'you know what I hate? Those comedy tv shows'. Comedy in music can be as good or as bad as comedy in any other medium. What is this bizzare idea that music should be pure and unpolluted by comedy that some people have in their noggins?


idunnosomename

Quote from: Cuellar on April 18, 2018, 04:06:59 PM
Can a chord change in and of itself be funny? A combination of two words which are separately not particularly funny can be hilarious. Can going from one chord to another be similarly hilarious? Taken alone, not as an accompaniment to a visual image or a piece of text. I suppose there are far fewer chords than there are words. But notes in general, then. Can a string of notes be funny?

People say Beethoven's 8th Symphony is full of gags, but let me tell ya, I sure wasn't laughing.

Some Haydn and Mozart is definitely witty, and can actually make you laugh with a switch-and-bait.

For an extreme example of a pure instrumental being funny, see Dudley Moore doing "Beethoven's Colonel Bogey sonata". There's also the long-running institution of P.D.Q. Bach.

magval

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on April 18, 2018, 04:05:03 PM

Sex Farm
is funny for sure. Nigel's spoken intro to Stone'enge is good too: "No one knows who they were, or _ what they were doing."

For the most part though, I'd say much of the humour tends to spring from how well observed the parodies are.

Way he says "the DRUIDS" is real funny too, with all the weight and expectation it carries that the audience will be impressed.

BeardFaceMan

My problem with a lot of comedy songs is that they waste comedy time. You usually have an intro where they play music for a bit to show they can really play, then have a verse which has no gags and is just a set up for the chorus which is usually one gag.  If youre lucky you might get a funny line in the second verse set up and then its back to the same gag for another chorus. Amusing bridge, slight variation on the chorus and we're done. The lengthy set ups arent excused by a repeated punchline, the whole thing seems like a waste of time, a way for a comedian to get some life out of a routine that doesnt quite work. "I know, I'll make it into a song!" and then you're getting the applause for being able to play a guitar and make words rhyme rather than for being funny.

Although saying that, when comedy songs are done right they can be fucking amazing. Its just a hell of a lot harder than it looks to do it well.

ajsmith2

Has anyone ever moshed to stand up comedy? Like if someone was really feeling George Carlin setting the world to rights or something.

Cuellar

Don't want to be tediously predictable but a comedy song I've genuinely enjoyed, and maybe the only, is Stewart Lee's 'Russel Brand's Wedding'.

I just think the lines:

"And if a comet came, and killed the lot of us
In the scheme of things, it would be no great loss.
Jonathan Ross."

Justify the whole thing.

sevendaughters

I like Hinge & Bracket, Victor Borge, and the broken piano stylings of Les Dawson. I think funny music is better when there's some sense of rigour of the music being trashed rather than something like Axis of Awesome or Isy Suttie.

Utter Shit

I've not heard a huge amount of Bo Burnham's stuff, but Pandering/Country Song is a great pastiche. Anyone recommend anything else by him?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stVNdLmKGYw&t=2s

ASFTSN

COCK E.S.P. makes me laugh sometimes, whether or not it's music is up to you.




BeardFaceMan


up_the_hampipe

Quote from: Utter Shit on April 18, 2018, 05:04:50 PM
I've not heard a huge amount of Bo Burnham's stuff, but Pandering/Country Song is a great pastiche. Anyone recommend anything else by him?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stVNdLmKGYw&t=2s

Repeat Stuff https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCVGpvzcHko

Kill Yourself https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByC8sRdL-Ro

Hip-hop nursery rhymes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FquDb3wT50g

Quote from: Cuellar on April 18, 2018, 04:06:59 PM
Can a chord change in and of itself be funny? A combination of two words which are separately not particularly funny can be hilarious. Can going from one chord to another be similarly hilarious? Taken alone, not as an accompaniment to a visual image or a piece of text. I suppose there are far fewer chords than there are words. But notes in general, then. Can a string of notes be funny?

People say Beethoven's 8th Symphony is full of gags, but let me tell ya, I sure wasn't laughing.

The abba medley in knowing me knowing you where partidge drops down an octave because he cant hit the high note in 'thank you for the music' is a great musical joke.

Quote from: Utter Shit on April 18, 2018, 05:04:50 PM
I've not heard a huge amount of Bo Burnham's stuff, but Pandering/Country Song is a great pastiche. Anyone recommend anything else by him?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stVNdLmKGYw&t=2s

Straight white male https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jk6gjqMrOy8

Rant - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hCQLEIWadk

Cant handle this (although maybe needs the context of the rest of the rest of the show to fully appreciate) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYy0o-J0x20

kalowski


Does Russ Abbot's Atmosphere count as a comedy record?  It's a comedian singing it, yet it seems a fairly straight record and video, but there's the 'Frankie's got his banned/band' joke in it, and a mildly funny bit in the video when there's a close-up of a woman shaking her bum about.

Captain Z

Quote from: up_the_hampipe on April 18, 2018, 05:48:45 PM
Repeat Stuff https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCVGpvzcHko

Kill Yourself https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByC8sRdL-Ro

Hip-hop nursery rhymes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FquDb3wT50g

See, this is the kind of stuff I sit stoney-faced through. One idea dragged out across the formula BeardFaceMan described above. "Imagine if Kanye did his ranting thing but about trivial matters instead? *7 minutes of autotune*". I suppose he is self-aware enough to end the hip-hop song in the way he does, which was the only thing that raised a smile from me, although considering how much of his material seems to be music-based I'm not so sure. The 'Kill yourself' song is the kind of joke Sean Lock or Frankie Boyle could deal with within 5 seconds.

I nearly posted "whenever a comedian reaches for the guitar" in the 'Stand-up cliches you wish would fuck off' thread, so was giving this some thought anyway. Actually now I think about it there are more exceptions than examples off the top of my head. But there definitely seemed to be a period of time from the mid-2000s to early 2010s where many comedians were using a competent ability to play an instrument to make up for poor material. I think the first time I really started to notice it was a Lee Evans DVD, which ended with an epic piano/choir performance totally devoid of humour. When I started going to more live gigs it seemed like half of the acts featured at least one comedy song and I only remember the feeling of being bored to death during them. My attitude was summarised perfectly by that Stewart Lee/Armando exchange during CV: "well, I'm going to finish with a song", "Oh Jesus!".

Exceptions I can think of:

Stewart Lee - The CV episode that references guitar-weilding comedians, and ends with the toaster song, is possibly my favourite 30 mins of standup ever, although the main thing I find funny about the song itself is the interruption at the end. 'Russel Brand's Wedding' is a better example, given that it still features an equivalent gag-rate to a spoken piece. The juxtaposition of David Baddiel and subsequent callback is great, as is the bit that follows 'Hindu'. On the other hand I'm not a fan of the 'Galway Girl' ending to whichever show that is.

Bill Bailey - A good ability to make the music itself the object of the humour rather than lyrics. 'Match Of The Day' in minor key, powercut at a U2 gig, BBC News rave... etc.

Tim Vine - Recently re-watched some of his stuff and some of his short musical interludes can be funny, e.g. 'waiting'. 'Alarm bells' not so much, but at least they're always over with quickly.

A comedian I saw live around 2010 who did an hour as a character of a hospital radio DJ playing ever-increasingly inappropriate songs dedicated to patients. 'Brian who's in for a triple bypass' = whoaaa-oaaa-ooaaahh... building a bridge to your heart; 'just given birth to a 12lb baby boy' = nothing's fine, I'm torn; 'Spiderman action figure stuck up his anus' = "search for the hero inside yourself". Probably sounds quite cliche now and I'm sure it's been done before but it was the first time I'd seen a live stand-up do a show in this way. Anyone recognise the identity of this comedian?

Father Ted 'My Lovely Horse' - although this was written by an actual successful musician so not sure if it counts.

Sexton Brackets Drugbust

I'd image the Hospital Radio DJ was Tom Binns character, Ivan Brackenbury.


up_the_hampipe

Quote from: Captain Z on April 18, 2018, 09:09:11 PM
See, this is the kind of stuff I sit stoney-faced through. One idea dragged out across the formula BeardFaceMan described above. "Imagine if Kanye did his ranting thing but about trivial matters instead? *7 minutes of autotune*". I suppose he is self-aware enough to end the hip-hop song in the way he does, which was the only thing that raised a smile from me, although considering how much of his material seems to be music-based I'm not so sure. The 'Kill yourself' song is the kind of joke Sean Lock or Frankie Boyle could deal with within 5 seconds.

Sean Lock and Frankie Boyle could take everything that's funny within that song and turn it into a 5 second one-liner? Just because a song is about one subject doesn't mean it's one idea. That's most stand-up comedy, picking apart a subject for jokes. That song isn't 'lol kill yourself' over and over, there's a structure. Sorry you didn't find it funny, but that's way too dismissive of what he's doing. Similarly, your summation of the Kanye song. If that's what you took away from it, I can only assume you must have switched off half way through.