Humour in music!

Frank Zappa, off Absolutely Free. always makes me chuckle

I far prefer bands that are able to take themselves lightly, and are able to laugh at themselves, even while being completely serious. This is why I love early Smiths, but solo Morrosey makes me wince. I love early Blur, yet by the time they got really heavy and started hating each other, it was obvious they were taking themselves too seriously. I think they managed to capture the playfulness back, but not many bands manage to acheive it.

There are so many bands I can think of who have lost the ability to laugh at themselves, that I'm having trouble thinking of ones who can. Will have a think about this one.

revive - this thread was too short.

are there many examples of bands/records where there are funny bits, but others that are genuinely sincere, i.e. there is a humourous/comedy song (or even a number of them) that is on an album that isn't meant to be a comedy record per se.

I've always preferred "serious" bands that sing about "serious" things. Not that it's not REALLY EASY to laugh at lots of things about Fugazi...

Repeated revisits, since middle school, to the better bits of the Dead Milkmen's catalog never feel like a mistake. First, they didn't really sound like anyone else. Second, they had a way of embedding all of their material, both the clever and the oafish, into songs that somehow were able to hit on an emotional level.

Plus, the instrumental, "Tugena," is great.

are there many examples of bands/records where there are funny bits, but others that are genuinely sincere

Tens of thousands. Buy more records.

yeah nearly every hip hop song ever

sometimes within the same line!

this thread reminds me of mccartney interviews where he said that at one point (circa rubber soul-revolver-pepper) they decided to make more comedy songs because that's what they thought would be the next trend...

and of course, you have dylan, kinks, moz, prince, r-kelly... many favourites of mine !

what about stuff that's musically humorous as opposed to lyrically humourous? Stuff like Aphex for instance?

I have some difficulties with the concept of musical humor, I must say. like funny sounds ? structure ?

suppose so?

out of context (knowing the artist, a video, a cover etc) and without lyrics/voice, I don't know if I would be able to tell if a music is humourous or not. Like, I know that in "classical" compositions, you have ways to compose something that is supposed to be humourous (by combining certain keys, notes, chords, whatever) but somehow, I've never found these compositions particularly humourous. I'm not too clear, I guess.
I don't know Aphex enough. Do you have other exemples ?

If humor is about setting up, then defying an expectation, the problem with musical jokes is that they can become the new standard. Stuff like Butthole Surfers or Camper Van Beethoven's juxtapositions of classic rock with nerdy punk irreverence were outrageous when they came out. But they became boilerplate by the early 90s.