Music and humor can intersect in one of three ways.
The first way is when serious artists get clever. This would be The Whos Squeeze Box, The Ramones I Want to be Sedated, or Aerosmiths Dude Looks Like a Lady.
The second time music and humor converge is via quirkiness. This is when serious musicians write and record offbeat and weird material but yet still maintain a smattering of professionalism.
Then there are the artists that try to be funny all the time. Regardless of their talent level, these artists forgo being taken as serious musicians just so they can make us laugh.
Of course theres a fourth type of musical humorunintentional. This category would include just about every album released by a television actor, all music from countries where women arent allowed to reveal their face in public, and any pop song featuring a synthesizer worn as a guitar.
Yet, music and humor, while they have their moments, dont seem to conjoin as often as one might expect.
Maybe if he had sung about something other than the commercialization of a dead Egyptian Pharaoh his catchy tune would still be relevant. As it is now, King Tut is only slightly less worthless than Cheaper by the Dozen 2.
A similar thing probably happened to Bobby Boris Pickett. He was going to call his song Lovers Bash but instead opted for Monster Mash. Sure, his song went to number one like McCartneys but who wants to cover a song about monsters?
They featured local dialects, familiar stock characters, and patter (an early form of rap). These light hearted musical pieces would take to the stage in between acts of opera seria.
The torch of music and humor was picked up in the 20th century by Lindley Armstrong Jones, also known as Spike Jones. Jones didnt so much write music that was humorous but he took serious songs and made them funny–similar to what Joss Stone does. In 1942, Jones scored a huge hit with Der Fuehrers Face.
The song was featured in a Walt Disney propaganda film and ridiculed Adolf Hitler by following the word Heil with a razzbery sound:
…Heil, (razzberry), Heil (razzberry), right in Der Fuehrers face!
It should be noted that besides his highly skilled parodies, Yankovic also does these wonderful polka medleys of current hit songs. They are roll out the barrel funny.
The twosome has released some hilarious songs like Think About It, Ladies of the World, and The Most Beautiful Girl (In the Room). Okay, they dont sound funny but trust us, their songs are hilarious.
Popular music still remains a rather serious place (thanks mainly to the humorless cabal of U2, Pearl Jam, and Sting). Those who mix humor and comedy get a quick fifteen minutes of fame and then are either cast aside like an ex-girlfriend of John Mayer, or regulated to a novelty act like the current girlfriends of John Mayer.
However, I strongly believe, and you may laugh at this, but the future of music and humor looks hilarious.
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