Music-comedy is an incredibly niche world, but once you are in it, you understand why everyone there is absolutely obsessed.
Music has been around forever. Music is the soundtrack that has eternally underscored the ebbs and flows of history. Shakespeare accurately wrote, "If music be the the food of love, play on." For the entire history of the world, music has had a captivating way of touching the soul, gripping the spirit, and artistically ushering people through their day to day lives. While the genres consistently change, music is constant. It reflects and informs each generation as it passes.
Something that has more recently come to the forefront of the popular world is stand-up comedy. We are not saying that stand-up comedy is new. Greats have graced stages for many years, leaving people doubled over in laughter. However, the rise of Netflix and other streaming services has opened the world of stand-up comedy to a wider demographic than it ever had before. Furthermore, the popularity of comedy currently can be seen as a means to combat the overwhelmingly nihilistic sensibilities of the current generation. The world must exist in balance. Therefore, the current raging popularity of stand-up comedy makes sense.
When you combine the two together, they become even more powerful. If every you have seen a comedian (a *good* comedian) pull out an instrument on stage, the crowd instantly goes wild. Suddenly it seems as if already excellent jokes are hitting even harder than they were before. When we hear our favorite singers make joking songs, the listening experience is nothing short of delightful. The question then becomes this: why are they so much stronger together.
First and foremost, music and comedy lend themselves incredibly well to each other because the basic principles of both are virtually the same. They use nuance, timing, and carefully crafted structure to effect the emotions of a general population. They create a bonding and human experience. We have seen Saturday Night Live use this tactic time and time again. Recent alum of the show, Cecily Strong, was often seen on screen in the throws of a comedic musical number.
However, music and comedy differ in how they generate this bonding human experience. If comedy and music were each to take a Myers-Briggs personality test, music would be feeling and comedy would be thinking. Of course, a great amount of thought goes into crafting the perfect song and what is comedy if it doesn't evoke a feeling of joy, but it is not about the outcome. It is about the way that each form makes its way into the human mind.
Music comes in creating an ambiance. Listeners are not necessarily attaching themselves to every word right off of the bat. Instead they are being affected by the feelings generated by the different compositions. Comedy, on the other hand, relies on trickery and clever twists of phrase. The audience needs to be hanging on to every word in order see the line of humor.
Therefore, when the two combine, there is a wonderful sensory overload.
Music-comedy lunges for the emotional hub of the human psyche from two different directions. The combined force of coming at the listener from both a feeling and thinking perspective leaves them even more instantly moved. Of course music does not need comedy to be effective nor does comedy need music. Yet, the blending of the two is an incredibly powerful blend.
On top of that, there is something to be said about impressing the audience. When an artist gets up and performs an incredible ballad, people are impressed. When a comedian gets on stage and leaves a room roaring with laughter, the audience is impressed. When artists are able to successfully combine music and comedy, the audience is impressed at the sheer amount of talent it takes to accomplish that feat. Setting comedy for a tempo and melody is something that will always leave an audience asking, "How did they do that?"
From Weird Al Yankovic to Bo Burnham, music-comedy of any take or genre has a way of staying with people. Through it's humor and lyricism, it taps into the generational zeitgeist, leaving people singing songs, laughing to themselves all day long. Music-comedy has a sticking-with-a-person capability that oftentimes stand-up comedy alone does not. (Although, we must say we have gotten a joke stuck in our head from time to time.)
Music and comedy make each other more powerful. We hope to see this genre skyrocket even higher into the masses of general popularity as time goes on.
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