Margaret Cho has all the time been singularly herself. It’s an vitality she brings to each her comedy and her music, a enterprise she first started in 2010 along with her first album. Cho Dependent, she tells ipromiseyoumedia, “was actually like nonetheless a comedy file,” however it was additionally a possibility to collaborate with artists she loves, together with Andrew Chicken, Fiona Apple, and Tegan and Sara. Since then, Cho has continued to discover her musical abilities, most not too long ago along with her new album Fortunate Present (releasing February 14th).
For Fortunate Present, Cho did “a bulk of the writing of the music together with the lyrics. That made it a really particular new expertise. And a few of these songs are from about like 10 and 11 years in the past. So I’m actually grateful to lastly put them on the market.”
When speaking about her music, Cho looks like she belongs to the subgenre of comedians who make legit music, mentioning Neil Hamburger, Mae Martin, Whitmer Thomas, and the “unimaginable” Matt Berry. To not point out Steve Martin, “our patron saint,” she laughs. “Steve Martin might be the final word instance of comedians who make severe music. All of these comedians, in addition they have their separate identities as musicians.”
Cho additionally notes that there are performers on the market who mix each side seamlessly, like Reggie Watts and Donald Glover/Infantile Gambino. “I feel Tyler the Creator and Doechii additionally trip the road of comedy and music, as a result of their songs are so comedic that they’re nearly sketches. It’s actually fascinating the way it’s previous simply music. It’s one thing a lot way more.”
All of it speaks to the methods wherein music and comedy really feel linked. “Comedy is lyrical. It’s poetic. It’s rhythmic. There’s repetition,” Cho says. “And choruses and catchphrases or punchlines are actually the identical factor.”
In deciding on 13 comedians whose albums Cho thinks everybody ought to personal, Cho picked a lot of people that she is aware of or knew personally, as a longtime veteran of the comedy scene. Revisiting their work, she says, was a really emotional expertise, particularly when it got here to previous buddies who’ve handed away in recent times: A number of occasions, she in contrast the expertise of relistening to those albums to listening to “extinct birdsong.”
Provides Cho, “What a beautiful factor, that I can simply get my headphones on and be with them once more.” She extremely recommends listening to albums with headphones, by the way in which, even when a filmed model of their efficiency is accessible. “There’s an intimacy which you can have with a comic after they’re proper in your ear. To ingest comedy in that approach, when you possibly can hearken to the comic… It’s nearly such as you’re simply sitting with them.”
Please discover under Cho’s Crate Digging comedy album picks. “This was actually enjoyable,” she says. “These are my favourite data, and I’m so joyful to share them.”
Invoice Hicks — Rant in E-Minor and Arizona Bay
All of it’s well timed. I listened to [Rant in E-Minor] on the day that the inauguration occurred, and he opens up with a Billy Ray Cyrus joke. He informed this joke 30-plus years in the past, and it was proper on the entrance of my thoughts as a result of Billy Ray Cyrus had simply provided that disastrous efficiency on the inauguration. After which Arizona Bay is concerning the nationwide disasters which are going to sink California.
Invoice was such an unimaginable man. I opened for him lots, and he was a mentor, he was so thoughtful. He would all the time deep-throat the microphone, so he introduced his personal microphones to exhibits in order that the openers, like myself, wouldn’t must cope with it. Covid protected, early on.
He was tremendous joyful, although you wouldn’t essentially comprehend it from the outset. He would roll as much as gigs [wearing] a postal employee’s hat that had bloodstains, as a result of at the moment, the shooters have been all postal staff. The thought of going postal, proper? It was simply his humorousness. So you’ll suppose, properly, this individual should have psychological sickness. However he was probably the most sane, well-adjusted, lovely man. Variety, clever, considerate — but he received on stage and he was a monster, in one of the simplest ways. These albums actually seize him in his prime.
Stream Rant in E-Minor on Apple Music or Amazon Music | Purchase on Vinyl/CD
Stream Arizona Bay on Apple Music or Amazon Music | Purchase on Vinyl/CD
