Stand-Up Comedian in Pottstown

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Album Review: Bigger & Blackerer, David Cross

When this album first came out I only listened to the first couple tracks because they turned me off and I didn't have allot of time to listen to the whole album. Yesterday while I sat in traffic I decided to listen to the whole album. Because I love David Cross. LOVE HIM. The first time I heard him way back in 2002 I thought he was the reincarnation of Hicks. So excitedly, I put the CD in.

I wish I had not. Because if I had not done so, David Cross would still be a God to me.


Bigger & Blacker is, without a shadow of doubt, the worst comedy album I have ever heard. Ever. The jokes aren't funny. He actually re-uses jokes from other albums.  I don't know how to describe it, but David Cross has gone from being an edgy, political-social commentator, to straight up hack humorist.

@ This is an hour long album, but the first five minutes are of him singing. So if you buy the album or    download it or whatever, just skip that entire track.

@The next five tracks deal with Whole Foods, date rape, black people, and drugs. There is one joke in the track "black stuff" that is actually really funny; I'm telling you this because you'll want to cling onto this moment for dear life, because that's the last time you will laugh while listening to this piece of dog shit.

@The next three tracks, are about Republicans, health care, Orthodox Jews, and Scientology, and they are the most heartbreaking segments of the entire album. Cross has lost all his edginess and wit and replaced it with soggy impersonations and ridiculous scenarios. The joke about Scientology is so bad that I think the audience was confused about what the punch-line was supposed to be and just started clapping. It's so fucked up.

@Whereas the first portion is boring, and the middle is depressing, the final sixteen minutes of Bigger & Blackerer are FUCKING ENGRAGING. Some of the bits don't even sound like jokes, they sound like bits you would hear at a dead-open mike that becomes a comedy workshop.  There are a couple jokes that don't have anything about them that would even make them jokes, they're just obviously there as filler.


Then he tells a joke that he used on his last album....ffffffffuuuuuuuu.......


Now as a comedian myself, I understand it how long it takes to develop new material, and I understand that Cross has been involved in tons of shit other than stand-up since It's Not Funny was released. But it's been six fucking years, and it's not like he's been dead on the alt comedy scene since then, but that's what this album feels like, it feels like a guy who needed to fill a 60 minute gig with jokes, so he used a TON of shit that he hasn't really tested out yet, and then when he ran out of those bits, he threw in a bit that he used on his last album. That's complete bullshit. That's like a band releasing an album with old songs on it, only it's not a 'best of' album, it's a new album with old songs.

Soon after this bit, the album ends, and if you're anything like me, you will take out the CD and toss it into the Schuylkill which is where it belongs. David Cross: you are dead to me.

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