Laughing with my Music.

Although I am very serious about my love of music, not all music has to be serious for us to enjoy.  I can think of numerous albums and artists that have created funny or humorous music that I enjoy listening to.

One album my wife and I love is the debut from Electric Six.  Not only does this have some great rock, but the lyrics are hilarious too.  Most people know their hit ‘Gay Bar’, but ‘Danger! High Voltage’ and ‘Naked Pictures (Of Your Mother)’ also crack me up too.  The whole album doesn’t take itself too seriously and is a quick blast of upbeat, fun music.

Steve Poltz is a musician I have interviewed on the blog before (Musical Influences: Steve Poltz) and his humour is zany, offbeat and infectious.  If you follow him on Facebook you will often read his hilarious little stories and thoughts and whilst his earlier albums had more serious lyrics, some later songs are hilarious and he often posts them on YouTube for us to enjoy.  He also does small skits on YouTube that I love.  One were he teaches you to say ‘dude’ under various circumstances is a lot funnier than it sounds.



Tenacious D’s first album was great for it’s mix of music and the brief interludes in-between where Jack Black and Kyle Gass joke around and act out various segments.  It adds to the songs, most of which have funny lyrics too.  So not only do you get some cracking rock songs (I’m thinking of ‘Tribute’ here), but you also get some tongue in cheek humour to boot.

Will Smith also uses brief humorous interludes between tracks on his ‘Big Willie Style’ album and it works to keep the whole album upbeat and fun.

Jeffrey Lewis is another artist in the Steve Poltz vein, where his music is credible in its own right, but also manages to be funny.  Their styles aren’t too dissimilar either. On one song Jeff tells us to ‘Never Let the Record Label Take You Out To Lunch’ as they’ll make you pay at the end of the day and he also teaches us how to kill Zombies on ‘If You Shoot the Head You Kill the Ghoul’.  Both good advice wrapped up in a musical package I’d say.  I adore the title of the album these songs come off of, ‘It’s the Ones Who’ve Cracked that the Light Shines Through’, couldn’t put it better myself.

So, as you can see, music doesn’t have to be brooding or serious to be credible and I can think of other artists who use humour in their music or performances (like Chas and Dave who I’ve written about before) and I’m sure you can think of many more and can suggest your own. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this one.