Comedy Rock - History

History

Early USA examples include Stan Freberg, who lampooned artists such as Elvis Presley, Harry Belafonte and The Platters, and Sheb Wooley whose "Purple People Eater" reached No. 1 on the Billboard pop chart in 1958 and stayed there 6 weeks.

One of the most successful groups of the genre is Mamonas Assassinas, Brazil. In just six months sold over 2 million records, but had his career interrupted at its height, in a plane crash on March 2, 1996.

In Britain during the 1950s and early 1960s comedians such as Charlie Drake and The Goons frequently appeared in the top ten with humorous rock 'n' roll records - the latter, along with Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear, were to influence the word-play of John Lennon's lyrics. Later British groups specialised in comedy: these included The Scaffold, The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band and Alberto y Los Trios Paranoias. Later in Britain, in the 2000s, Mitch Benn released several studio albums that satirised current affairs using various musical genres, but mainly rock. His 2012 Breaking Strings album was critically acclaimed for its rock sensibility.

Some comedy rock artists, such as Frank Zappa, and more recently Tenacious D and Flight of the Conchords create songs with amusing, witty, and/or over-the-top lyrics. Other acts such as Dread Zeppelin, Beatallica, and GWAR rely more on gimmicks such as outrageous costumes or genre-mixing for comic effect.

Dan Finnerty with his The Dan Band has made legendary comedy rock appearances in the Todd Phillips films Old School and The Hangover spoofing "Total Eclipse of the Heart" and "Candy Shop", as well as his cult hit live show, which parodies female cover songs and was filmed as a one hour TV special directed by McG and executive produced by Steven Spielberg.

Many mainstream rock and punk rock bands are known to incorporate comedy songs in their work: Bloodhound Gang, Blink-182, Bowling For Soup, Reel Big Fish, Sublime, Primus, System of a Down, Green Jellÿ, Camper Van Beethoven, The Meatmen, The Mentors, They Might Be Giants and The Presidents of the United States of America.

Rock has been the target of many spoofs and several spoof bands have gone on to have hit records, for example The Hee Bee Gee Bees and Spinal Tap in the U.S., and Bad News in the U.K. "Weird Al" Yankovic, now in his fourth decade of creating song parodies, has sold more than 12 million albums (more than any comedy act in history). The virtual band Dethklok is death metal spoof featured in the Adult Swim animated program Metalocalypse and their album entitled The Dethalbum debuted at No. 21 on the Billboard Top 200 list.

The band Steel Panther, formerly known as Metal Skool, has become a fixture on the Los Angeles Sunset Strip with their spoof of 80's glam metal and their success has opened the doors for other Hollywood spoof bands such as The Jimi Homeless Experience.

Punk rock has made its contribution to the comedy rock ranks, with such bands as The Social Normans, The Dead Milkmen, The Aquabats, Jilted John and The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black. Sid Vicious's cover of "My Way" is comedy rock of a more sardonic sort.

Many less popular bands are often associated with Comedy Rock, often inventing outrageous names for their genres, for example the New Zealand band "Shit, Shit, We're Dying" dubbed their comedy-hardcore style as "Post-Extreme Blasphemecore".