 Steve Martin When Warner Brothers started rereleasing Steve's first three albums on CD, a hazy fog of indifference fell upon my brain on whether to pick these up or not. NOT because I don't love Steve – quite the contrary, he's truly one of my favorite performers of all time, and while I shy away from the habit of people claiming "influences," it wouldn't be a lie to say he isn't one of mine. He make-a me feel good, you know? The problem stemmed from the fact from having already owned these albums on vinyl, as well as two on Magnetized Cassette™ (patent pending). So, I say to myself in Steve fashion "AAA? Why bother rebuying these AGAIN, when you've got the vinyl at home? Oh look, another Zappa reissue to contemplate thinking about purchasing! This place has GREAT carpeting!" Etc. But eventually, that pesky "buy" emotion won out, and I've since been surprised how many times these albums have gotten play in my CD player. Frisky l'il devils, they are. Comedy is Not Pretty was Steve's third album, the last in a trilogy rounded out by Let's Get Small and A Wild and Crazy Guy. Steve's been on record in the past claiming he thought maybe he was beginning to stretch for material by the time Comedy was made, and while it's not unlike his first two, I'd say that in terms of being an "album," Comedy actually flows the best, and is by far and away my favorite. Steve's stand-up dates better than most anything released in 1979, and even after multiple listens, I'm still a sucker for "songs" (well, it IS an album) … ok, "tracks" like "Hostages" and "Googlephonics." And while it's easy to drift into "Let's quote Steve" mode when talking to others – "Yyyyyou can be a millionaire and never pay taxes … first, get a million dollars." – at least it's not near either the dork level of quoting Python (not knocking Python itself, mind you) or the pure annoyance and/or ubiquity of lines from "Seinfeld." Talk about a reason not to have a "day job," but then before you know it, you're holed up in your basement with your pasty, white skin writing reviews no one reads. God forbid. Regardless, Steve seems to be one of those rare celebrities, like Carson, that no one ever harbors ill-will toward, and until NBC FINALLY releases DVDs of his truly funny TV specials from the 70s, you've always got his stand-up albums to pick up a similiar vibe. Plenty of irreverant jokes about McDonalds and Farrah Fawcett abound, and only a couple of times will you have to cover Grandma's ears due to lewdness, either Steve's, or her own. Steve Martin's sense of humor has essentially never changed throughout his career, which, for those who haven't watched a movie or turned on their TV (pronounced: tee-vee) in the past 20+ years, is a sublime mixture of subtlety, sophistication, buffoonery, and all-out cool. And back in the day before the late-80s proliferation of comedy clubs & improv tv-shows depleted a comic's lifetime of material in 30 minutes, comedy albums were much more abundant, since mass-media outlets were much scarcer. Maybe it's a good thing comedy album critical-mass has long since hit its peak, and they're much less common these days. Now, I was going to make a joke about "The world doesn't need a Rita Rudner box set," but then I just reminded myself that Jeff Foxworthy has sold close to 650 million albums in the past x years, or something like that. Once again, comedians 1, AAA 0.
Review by AAA |