Grammys More Than Just Music

Written by Jon Williams

In case you missed it somehow, the Grammy Award nominations were announced last week in an all-day event that culminated in a concert special that came with the Album of the Year nominees. The artists and albums up for that coveted award are Beck’s Morning Phase, Beyonce’s self-titled surprise, Pharrell’s GIRL, Ed Sheeran’s X, and Sam Smith’s In the Lonely Hour. You can find these CDs, along with all the others up for awards in all categories, in our collection of 2015 Grammy nominees.

When you hear about the Grammys, your mind automatically turns to music—which is only natural, as the awards honor the best and brightest in the music industry, and at the ceremony the awards themselves take a backseat to some of the most notable performances of the year. With that in mind, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that not all Grammy Awards are given out for music. One such award is that for comedy album, which has a stellar lineup this year. Here are the nominees for this year:

Louis C.K. – Oh My God: Even if you don’t know Louis C.K. by sight, chances are excellent that you know his work. In addition to his standup, he has a long and successful comedy writing career, including for Letterman and Saturday Night Live. He has been nominated for several Emmy Awards, winning in 1999 for The Chris Rock Show, and again just last year for his own show, the acclaimed FX series Louie.

Jim Gaffigan – Obsessed: If there’s one overarching theme in Jim Gaffigan’s comedy, it’s that he likes to talk about food. A lot. He has authored two books of humor: Dad Is Fat and Food: A Love Story; the titles should give you some idea. As such, his humor is generally pretty clean and family-appropriate. Although he doesn’t maintain a steady presence in Hollywood, it’s certainly not out of the ordinary to see him on film or TV, with roles in Super Troopers and That ‘70s Show, to name just a couple.

Patton Oswalt – Tragedy Plus Comedy Equals Time: Patton Oswalt, on the other hand, is all over the place. Performing as a comedian for over twenty years, he has also gotten regular Hollywood work. He does a fair amount of voice work, most notably starring as Remy the Rat in Disney/Pixar’s Ratatouille. Most recently he’s had a recurring role on Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. He’s also frequently found on Twitter, where he’s been known to experiment with the form as a method of delivering comedy.

Sarah Silverman – We Are Miracles: Like Louis C.K., one of Sarah Silverman’s first jobs was writing for SNL, although she had little success and was fired after one season. Obviously, that hasn’t deterred her, as she has gone on to become one of the biggest names in comedy. She, like Patton Oswalt, has done some voiceover work, such as in Wreck-It Ralph, and plenty of other acting work besides. She has appeared on Louie, and most recently was in the Seth MacFarlane comedy A Million Ways to Die in the West.

Weird Al Yankovic – Mandatory Fun: Okay, so this one actually is musical in nature, as well as being hilarious. Al took the Internet by storm earlier this year with the release of this, his fourteenth album, releasing a video per day for a week, including parodies of Pharrell’s “Happy” and Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines.” We wrote about him and his career at the time, but one thing we failed to mention (specifically) is that he won a previous Grammy for Best Comedy Album in 2003 for Poodle Hat.

All of the nominees have plenty of hilarious material available; SmartBrowse each of their names on our website for their films, audiobooks, and standup specials on DVD and CD. Who do you think is the funniest of the bunch?

Weird Al Owns the Internet

Written by Jon Williams

In case you’ve missed it—and I’m not sure that’s possible—musical comedian Weird Al Yankovic has been absolutely killing it over the past week since the release of his latest album, Mandatory Fun. To promote it, he released eight music videos in eight days via various pop-culture-centric websites, beginning with last Monday’s “Tacky” (a parody of the Pharrell hit “Happy”) and finishing off with today’s corporate-buzzword-skewering “Mission Statement” (not a straight parody, but heavily influenced by Crosby, Stills and Nash’s “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes”).

In between those videos were the grammar lovers’ dream “Word Crimes” (from Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines”), the twisted ode to aluminum “Foil” (from Lorde’s “Royals”), the contractor’s commercial “Handy” (from Iggy Azalea’s “Fancy”), the honest college fight song “Sports Song,” a lamentation of “First World Problems,” and a name-dropping “Lame Claim to Fame.” All eight songs, plus four others (including the staple polka medley), can be found on the new album. (You can view all these videos at weirdal.com if you missed any of them.)

Yankovic’s career start came courtesy of the Dr. Demento radio show, which played his Knack parody “My Balogna” and then had Al on as a guest to record “Another One Rides the Bus” in 1980. Both songs appeared on his self-titled debut album, released in 1983. His real break came with his second album, Weird Al Yankovic in 3D, which featured “Eat It,” a parody of the skyrocketing Michael Jackson. Pairing his sharp-witted lyrical stylings with clever music videos gave him a leg up in MTV’s ‘80s heyday, as did support from Jackson, whom Weird Al parodied again with 1988’s “Fat” (on the album Even Worse, both a play on MJ’s Bad).

In a career that now spans more than thirty years, Yankovic has had to evolve, as he did with 1992’s Off the Deep End, with both the lead single (“Smells Like Nirvana”) and the album cover playing on Nirvana and the breakout of grunge music. He gave the songs on that album more of a satirical edge, which has carried through to his music today. Mandatory Fun is Al’s fourteenth album…and probably his last, although he’s not retiring. With the prominence of video sharing sites like YouTube and the rise of digital music, he plans to do future distribution via those means, so as to be more even timelier with his work.

And that’s not all from the world of Weird Al. Yesterday also marked the 25th anniversary of his film UHF, in which his character takes over a defunct TV station and creates zany programming that makes it wildly popular. Although neither the film nor its soundtrack is currently available, Al said in a recent Newsweek interview that there are commemoration plans he’s “not at liberty to talk about right now” for later in the year. Will it be a Blu-ray release? Maybe a sequel announcement? We’ll just have to wait and see.

In the meantime, Weird Al’s popularity has risen to all-time heights—there’s a good chance Mandatory Fun will top Billboard’s chart this week, which would be a first in Al’s career, his previous best being 2011’s Alpocalypse, which made it to #9. So make sure you have the new album on your shelf, and SmartBrowse ‘Weird Al Yankovic’ on our website for even more by this hilarious (and Grammy-winning!) artist.