BACK ON THE RECORD

By Richard Zoglin

George Carlin is an anachronism in more ways than one. His shoulder-length hair and hipster attitude are throwbacks to the 1960s. His political passion recalls a time when stand-up comics actually stood up for something. And for 30 years he has continued to make comedy albums: Back in Town, his latest, is his 17th. But now it seems that Carlin has hung around long enough to be back in step with the times. Four comedy CDs--by Jeff Foxworthy, Adam Sandler, "Weird Al" Yankovic and the Jerky Boys--have made it to Billboard's Top 25 this year. New comedy labels are being launched--one by Eddie Murphy--and classic albums are being reissued. It's hardly a return to the Golden Age of the '50s and '60s, when albums like The 2000-Year-Old Man and My Son, the Folksinger were nationwide crazes. But comedy albums are making a comeback.

Comedians turned away from recordings during the 1980s, opting for sitcoms and HBO concerts instead. But now they--and audiences--are rediscovering an art form with unique pleasures and possibilities. Many albums, of course, still do little more than preserve live stand-up performances. Ellen DeGeneres, for example, has just released her first album, Taste This, a sampler of surprisingly retro stand-up routines (imagine, a comedian who still jokes about airplane food!). A funnier addition to the genre comes from Robert Schimmel (Robert Schimmel Comes Clean), whose X-rated ruminations on bodily functions and anal sex are redeemed by a relaxed, witty style reminiscent of early Carlin.

Comedians have to compete against rock stars on the record shelves, and that may explain why so many of them mix music into their act. Foxworthy, whose "You might be a redneck" routine long ago outlived its usefulness, shows a flair for country stylings in his new comedy-plus-music album, Crank It Up. And Yankovic, maestro of the rock parody, is in fine form in Bad Hair Day, which includes a nifty parody of Coolio's Gangsta's Paradise--called Amish Paradise.

Yankovic and Foxworthy perform in concert as well, but the Jerky Boys (one failed movie aside) thrive only on recordings. Their one unvarying gimmick: merciless prank phone calls. On their latest album (Jerky Boys 3), they ring up pizza places and massage parlors and torment people at the other end with idiotic requests or unprompted verbal abuse. To callers responding to classified ads they've placed for power tools, the Boys babble psychotically and refuse to give any information. You know the album has gone awry when you start cheering the hang-ups.

Your first reaction to a comedy album by Adam Sandler might be a quick hang-up as well. But hold on. Sandler, one of the more annoying Saturday Night Live cast members of recent years, reveals some unforeseen talent on his new album, What the Hell Happened to Me? He still lapses too often into juvenile self-indulgence, but the best of his dry, absurdist bits--several aging mafiosi dote on one of their grandchildren; a band of neighborhood pals teases a goat--have more body and feeling for character than anything SNL offers these days. Sandler, it seems, is one of those comics who just took a little while to find his place: on records.