Swap a CD: 15 Recently Posted CDs

Fun House - Dana Gould

Dana Gould — 2009-11-17T21:27:26-05:00

I Am Santa Claus - Bob Rivers & Twisted Radio

Bob Rivers & Twisted Radio — 2009-11-17T19:22:44-05:00

Rivers twists standards into bawdy, sometimes hilarious spoofs -- "Do You Hear What I Hear" becomes "Didn't I Get It Last Year?"; "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear" gets mauled into "I Came Upon a Roadkill Deer" -- plus some killingly accurate band parodies. The title track is rendered to the tune of Black Sabbath's "Iron Man"; "O Little Town of Bethlehem" is performed like The Animals' "House of the Rising Sun"; and it finishes off with the AC/DC-clone track "Jingle Hell's Bells." Satire projects like this always contain their share of groaners, but the best stuff is quite funny. ~ Roch Parisien, All Music Guide

More Twisted Christmas - Bob Rivers & Twisted Radio

Bob Rivers & Twisted Radio — 2009-11-17T19:09:26-05:00

Bob Rivers' More Twisted Christmas is another collection of inane, juvenile novelty holiday songs, highlighted by "It's the Most Fattening Time of the Year," "Sled Zeppelin," "Holidaze (S'Cuze Me, I've Got Gifts to Buy)," "There's a Santa Who Looks a Lot Like Elvis," "HEY YOU! Get Off of My House," "Yellow Snow! Yellow Snow! Yellow Snow!," and the immortally titled "Buttcracker Suite." If you thought the titles were funny, you'll probably think the songs are funny too. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide

Mahvelous - Billy Crystal

Billy Crystal — 2009-11-17T16:53:01-05:00

Mahvelous is a budget-line sampler of Billy Crystal's Saturday Night Live routines, which helped make him a star in the early to mid-'80s. Although it's better to experience the material with the visuals, it is kind of handy to have a lot of it all in one place. ~ Steve Huey, All Music Guide

Date with Bob Hope - Bob Hope

Bob Hope — 2009-11-17T13:28:26-05:00

Revenge on the Telemarketers Round One - Tom Mabe

Tom Mabe — 2009-11-16T22:15:32-05:00

In the school of telephone-harassment comedy that includes The Jerky Boys and Roy D. Mercer, the comedians call unsuspecting people and concoct embarrassing situations, rather like an aural version of Candid Camera. Comedian Tom Mabe works a twist on the concept by waiting at home for the endless army of telemarketers who pollute the phone lines these days to call him up, after which he invents characters and wild situations to pay them back for trying to sell him things he doesn't want. When a carpet-cleaning service calls asking for his business, he declares that he has blood all over his carpet and needs someone to come over right away; a caller soliciting donations to the police is greeted with comments about a pipe bomb, followed by an explosion; and when someone wants to sell him a cemetery plot, he says he's been contemplating suicide and feels this is a sign to go ahead. Some of the humor comes from the other side of the phone, as hapless telemarketers gamely try to play along. When he tells one he is a porn star, she says she is, too. Not to be outdone, he calls her back at home, posing as a supervisor, and fires her. As sympathetic as one may be to Mabe's rage at telemarketers, the material is uneven on Revenge on the Telemarketers, Round One and, as is usually the case with this sort of thing, becomes repetitious and irritating over the course of an album. (It works best in isolated segments on radio.) It isn't as repetitious and irritating as those telemarketers, though. The final track, "Revenge Is Sweet," is a musical number by Chris Parker and Steve Keller containing excerpts from previously heard segments and Mabe's own rap. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide

What the Hell Happened to Me - Adam Sandler

Adam Sandler — 2009-11-16T22:05:24-05:00

Just one of many gifted comedians to emerge from Saturday Night Live's impressive early-'90s roster, Adam Sandler nevertheless defied cynics' expectations by moving on to an improbably long and successful post-SNL film career, where he proceeded to endlessly recycle his stunted man-child persona ad nauseam -- much to the delight of his captive Generation X audience. This meant that Sandler's foray into comedy albums had to take an understandable back seat to his more lucrative priorities, but then, many would argue that this wasn't his strongest suit anyway -- a point driven home by his second CD, 1996's What the Hell Happened to Me? As its title suggests, the disc attempts to juxtapose Sandler's innocent childhood (driven home by the cute kiddy pictures strewn across the sleeve) with his severely twisted adult persona. spoken word bits like "Joining the Cult," "The Goat," "The Hypnotist," and "Memory Lane" (performed with the help of various guest pals and fellow comedians) combine banal notions like Monday Night Football, talking goats, and road trips with generous doses of scatological language, unconventional sex, and uncontrollable flatulence -- the usual. These are interspersed with seven examples of Sandler's usually reliable musical numbers, but the side-splitting reggae of "Ode to My Car" and the live-in-concert crowd-pleaser "The Chanukah Song" offer two truly distinctive winners. ~ Eduardo Rivadavia, All Music Guide

Fool Britannia Fat Boy - Various Artists

Various Artists — 2009-11-16T16:31:18-05:00

What the Hell Happened to Me - Adam Sandler

Adam Sandler — 2009-11-16T15:48:45-05:00

Dorkfish - Bill Engvall

Bill Engvall — 2009-11-16T12:38:38-05:00

Hits the Road - Roy D. Mercer

Roy D. Mercer — 2009-11-15T20:03:58-05:00

What the Hell Happened to Me - Adam Sandler

Adam Sandler — 2009-11-15T19:23:14-05:00

Bananas Bunch Best of Bananas Comedy Vol 1 - Various Artists

Various Artists — 2009-11-15T13:46:35-05:00

The Final Rip Off - Monty Python

Monty Python — 2009-11-15T12:58:02-05:00

This ironically titled set was not the final Monty Python anthology; contrarily, it is the troupe's first CD compilation. Nor could it be considered a ripoff, as it draws upon practically all of their albums, the exceptions being their debut long-player, Monty Python's Flying Circus (1970), as well as the Life of Brian (1979) and The Meaning of Life (1983) soundtracks. This is more likely due to licensing constraints than a dismissal of the contents. The bulk of the Final Rip Off (1988) has been derived from Another Monty Python Record (1971) and Monty Python's Previous Record (1973) -- which consist primarily of sketches from the four series of their groundbreaking BBC-TV program, Monty Python's Flying Circus. Likewise, there are copious inclusions from their post-telly recordings Matching Tie and Handkerchief (1973) and Monty Python's Contractual Obligation Album (1980). As this (or really any Python platter) demonstrates, the collective and respective talents of writer/actors Michael Palin, Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Terry Gilliam are as aurally unequaled as they are visually incomparable. Even as personalities and egos clashed behind the scenes, the results were uniformly inspired; this remains true of Palin's newly recorded "Introduction" and a few other brief links as well. A glance at the running order will inevitably reveal favorites for all dimensions of enthusiast, from the absurdist pet-related humor of "Fish Licence" and "Parrot (Oh, Not Again)" to the rare Cleese singing vocal on "Eric the Half-a-Bee Song" to the witty and worldly pokes at pompous pretenses on "Australian Table Wines," "Four Yorkshiremen," or the "Gumby Theatre" adaptation of Anton Chekhov's "Cherry Orchard." Plenty of Python's demented ditties are here as well, such as the Viking-led ode to "Spam," "I Bet You They Won't Play This Song on the Radio," and the Dadaist dig at Cleese on "Do Wot John." The sole cinematic representation comes from Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975). Final Rip Off is arguably the best representation of Monty Python's remarkable comedic range, although fanatics may find it doesn't replace owning each of the individual titles from which it has been compiled. ~ Lindsay Planer, All Music Guide

Live at Carnegie Hall - Ray Romano

Ray Romano — 2009-11-15T11:58:03-05:00

Everybody Loves Raymond, which began a lengthy stay in network prime time in 1996, is yet another in the endless string of half-hour situation comedies built around the talents of a standup comic, in this case Ray Romano. So, it stands to reason that if you enjoy the show, you'll enjoy this album (released to coincide with the start of the show's sixth season), which is based on the same sensibility. Romano begins by using an adjectival variant on the "F" word to express his wonder about appearing at Carnegie Hall. (The word is bleeped out even though everyone knows what he's saying, as a means of avoiding a parental advisory sticker -- rather like television, that.) His humor touches on enough risquÉ subjects to earn the album at least the equivalent of a PG-13 movie rating, but he is far from being a shock comic. His jokes and stories arise out of domestic situations, especially marriage and children. Affectionate pecks at his wife, funny observations about his children, and occasional bits of self-deprecation, all spoken in the accent and vocabulary of a working-class man from the Northeast suburbs, make for a likable comedic sensibility that anyone in young middle age can identify with. Sounds like an ideal persona to build a situation comedy around, doesn't it? As he says at the end of the performance, "Keep watching." ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide