Comedy is generally the areas where these people tragically fall down. How many truly awful music videos have we seen? The type where a band will film some kind of 'mockumentary' about their lives on the road. Or the videos that have poorly placed celebrities interacting and poking fun at the band. Or, worst of all, when a musician will dress up as another and parody them. Surely all real musicians should strive to move away from Weird Al Yankovic's 'music' videos. That said, I can understand the reasoning behind many of these videos. Frequently a band's message is very heavy and morbid and so to lighten the tension and make fun of themselves they wil ladd some comedy to their videos.
While this is rarely successful, it is at least more understandable than when a band tries to be funny live. I was forced to listen to a band recently that really believed they were the funniest comedians on the planet. A group of people that thought their music was so amazing that they should do the audience yet another service and bestow their whimsical humour upon them. It is a real shame, however, that every word out of their mouth was utter tripe. How many times does a joke have to land flat before a band will get the message that either they are not funny or that people do not want to hear their 'humour'.
In music videos these bands have a small chance at making fun at themselves. In this live situation I felt that the band was making fun of the audience. In actuality they were not trying to impress the audience with their humour or how cutting their wit was. They were trying to disguise their poor performance and lacklustre song writing. While comedy is a wonderful thing when done well it is absolutely disastrous when an artist dives into it instead of focusing on improving their craft.
Do not get me wrong though, people can be brilliant musicians and brilliant comedians at the same time. The problem is, that most are awful at both.
-The English Student
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