I like music. I like funny. I like funny music, though the two together are, frankly, not always so easy to pull off — classic Steve Martin-with-a-banjo is one thing; but oh, what painful, craven imitators the (admittedly often excellent) SNL star Andy Samberg and his Lonely Island crew hath wrought!
If music-funny is your thing, however, two of the most popular guys (in geeky viral-style internet terms, at least) doing that sort of thing both have new projects, and I'm curious to know what Popwatchers think of their very different respective brands of song-comedy.
Internet phenom Jonathan Coulton who is best known for his insane productivity and geek-boy compositions ("Code Monkey," "Re: Your Brains"), has a new CD/DVD this week entitled Best.Concert.Ever, and recalls the strummy, sometimes absurdist rock stylings of They Might Be Giants or Ben Folds.
Stephen Lynch (you may know him as the onetime star of Broadway's stage adaption of The Wedding Singer), on the other hand, is approximately 490586 times raunchier (check out his late-March release, 3 Balloons, or the new contest for fans to write their own versions of his defiantly un-PC, horrify-your-mother series "Dear Diary.")
Watch clips of both below and tell me, which one is more your song-comedy style? Warning: Lynch is really, really NSWF:
love stephen lynch! my “superhero”
love stephen lynch – if i could be a superhero…
I love JoCo SO MUCH. I saw him a couple months ago and it was basically nerd heaven (he tweets! one of the opening band members sported a Captain Hammer t-shirt!) He’s really funny and quirky, and there’s an underlying note of sadness in the songs that makes them both funnier and more poignant. (And if you want raunchy, check out “First of May”)
Jonathan Coulton is my fave.
JoCo all the way. I prefer my “Code Monkey” electric, BTW.
Stephen Lynch is awesome, “just a little bit special”.
I heart JoCo. While I wasn’t at the Best. Concert. Ever. (Drat!), I’ve seen him at the same venue twice and he never disappoints. And FWIW (which is basically nothing), my best friend is on the DVD as the audience robot voice in “Chiron Beta Prime.” So that makes me geeky-cool by association.
I love me some Stephen Lynch, but JoCo is pure awesome.
I saw Stephen Lynch’s comedy special on comedy central a long time ago, which is what convinced me to see The Wedding Singer. Then I saw him when he came to my town. I must say I prefered wedding singer the best – but he he hilarious at any time!
Jonathan Coulton all the way!! I have seen him in concert lots of times and he is always fantastic!! And his usual opening act, Paul & Storm, are really funny, too.
“All we want to do is eat your brains.”
I would love to see a Jonathan Coulton concert, bring it on. YaY!
Jonathan for ever. All he wants to do is eat your brains, just open up the door.
JoCo’s lyrics are fantastic. They’re funny, but calming at the same time.