By Jack Stein

When people hear the phrase “Comedy Music,” they generally don’t take whatever comes next very seriously. Music is an art, and people like their art to be serious: a still life painting, or a French noir drama film. They like their music the same way: even if the artists are having fun while playing it, it’s still pretty important they sing about serious topics, or else people don’t think the music really has any important meanings.

Listeners tend to believe that if they can’t take something seriously, it means that it doesn’t matter. The thing is, they couldn’t be more wrong. Sure, comedy music can be silly, nonsensical, abstract, and even crude, but that’s what makes it so awesome. It is a piece of music that lives and breathes simply to be ridiculous, and sometimes that’s a good thing.

When I talk to people about the comedy music that I listen to, they often say that it isn’t “real music.” That’s crazy! It takes as much work as the so called “real music,” maybe more. Successfully executed comedy is one of the hardest arts to perfect, and when that comedy has to be pushed into the mold of musical rhythm and rhyme, it makes it even harder.

There are different kinds of comedy music out there. The easiest kind, but at the same time the most easily accessible, is parody. Parody musicians, like the world famous “Weird Al” Yankovic, simply take already written songs and rewrite the lyrics to make them funny. It’s pretty hit or miss, generally, but when it hits, it can be fun to listen to. It’s a nice gateway to comedy music, because it is kind of the middleman between comedy and pop.

Then there’s comedy rap. Comedy rap is more like standup, because there isn’t really as much musical flow to it, and the artists are just saying funny things to a beat running in the background. Spawned by the popular TV show, Saturday Night Live, The Lonely Island is the foremost comedy rap group. While they don’t make their own music, per se, they are still writing their own lyrics and basic melodies. The Lonely Island especially tends to tap into the juvenile, foulmouthed humor that is a common pitfall for comics, musical and otherwise. The thing is, TLI invented the concept, so they have a way of making it work.

The easily most difficult, and therefore impressive, form of comedy music is comedy rock. Comedy rock is where the artists play instruments, along with singing comedic lyrics. They are true musicians, which makes them much easier for outsiders to take seriously.

One of the foremost comedy rock groups is Tenacious D, an acousti-metal duo consisting of the actor Jack Black and his friend, master guitarist Kyle Gass. Both bring strengths to the band and its music: between Black’s charismatic, vulgar, and heavily heavy metal-influenced vocals, and Gass’s sharp, speed metal style acoustic guitar playing (while both Black and Gass play, it is usually up to the latter to take the harder lead, while the former puts all of his energy into screaming and onstage antics), the band is almost hard to not take seriously. Their crazy lyrics, however, take away all doubt that they are true comedy: songs like “Deth Starr,” “Rize of the Fenix,” “Explosivo,” and “Beelzeboss: The Final Showdown” pepper their illustrious history.

Another comedy rock duo is the Flight of the Conchords. Like Tenacious D, they were first exposed to the public through an HBO TV show, and have similarly gained a cult following. The two New Zealanders, Bret and Jemaine, sing, rap, and use a wide rang of instruments in their songs: the didgeridoo, DG-20 casio-tone digital guitar, double bass, kazoo, and lots and lots of synthesizers. They wrote about such topics as women, dragons, David Bowie, friendship, and racist fruit vendors.
Comedy music probably isn’t as great as I think that it is. It isn’t the best music in the world, and its musicians aren’t the most talented, and they certainly aren’t the most hardworking. What it is, though, is unique. It is unlike any other kind of music, because it exists simply to make you laugh. When it doesn’t work, it’s an experience similar to pouring boiling oil in your ears. But when it does… it’s an experience unlike any other, an experience that is one part weird, one part crazy, one part insulting, and all parts funny. Because comedy is magic, music is art, so comedy music must be…  well, magical art, I suppose.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAYL5H46QnQ[/youtube]