My favorite Bill Cosby is 200 M.P.H., which has finally been released on CD.
Seconded. That act made me laugh until I cried the first time I heard it, and even repeat listenings are excellent.
It does help if you’re familiar enough with the comedian to visualize what they might be doing. Titus has a pretty expressive face and adding that to his tone of voice really makes a difference.
Richard Jeni’s Greatest Bit’s CD
I would suggest you get out of town where traffic is light before you put it in. The first time I heard it, I thought I was going to wreck the car I was laughing so hard.
A true comedy legend that was taken from us too soon.
Ron White’s stuff also put me on the floor. “I had the right to remain silent, but I didn’t have the ability.”
Ditto on Cosby, early Carlin, Spade, Kinison, and Izzard.
This may be my single favorite stand-up comedy routine ever.
Bill Hicks, “Relentless.” Very much a product of its time, referencing the first Iraq war and the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings, but it’s start-to-finish brilliant. My favorite bit is describing his eventual death, his parents having to go through his belongings, and his mom finding his porn stash.
Based on what you like, which is what I like, how about:
Dave Attell
Patton Oswalt
Jim Gaffigan
As an aside, one of the comedians that always has me in tears believe it or not, is Emo Philips, genius writer and the delivery works well with it.
Jim Gaffigan and Emo are both great. I have a couple of Gaffigan’s CDs. He duplicates some of the material between them, but overall it’s great.
I’ll also toss out Pablo Francisco. I haven’t heard any complete albums, but I’ve heard a couple bits on XM and they’re almost always great.
I was wondering how long it would take for someone to mention the best comedian around these days. Doug Stanhope has some great routines as well.
If you like older stuff, you may like some of Bob Newhart’s stuff. (Yes, that Bob Newhart.) His Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart is perhaps one of the seminal comedy albums of all time, and is proof that you don’t have to work blue to be funny.
I’ll also go along with Richard Jeni and George Carlin, but only Carlin’s early stuff.
Robin
Ricky Gervais if you want something from this century. All the live shows are brilliant Animals, Politics and Fame will offend many and amuse the rest. The radio podcasts are fun too.
Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner: The 2010 Year Old Man. Screamingly funny. Seriously.
Maybe they don’t exactly count as “stand-up,” but IMHO some of the funniest comedy albums ever are those of the Smothers Brothers. This CD compilation has a lot of their best stuff (but not, by any means, all of it).
Thanks for the great tips everybody. I’m shying away from the old Carlin/Cosby routines. not because they aren’t great, but they were so popular when I was a kid (yep, I’m old) that I’ve pretty much memorized them.
Some great stuff here. I may be spending mucho bucks on your suggestions but I just can’t resist good comedy.
I just want to point out to all of you that responded, my favorite CD’s are the John Pinette ones. I think his timing and visualization are beautiful. Check him out if you get the chance.
You go home NOW!
Pinette is amazing. His bit about going to dinner in Italy leaves me in tears every time.
Not quite comedy, but Henry Rollins spoken word material borders on high-brow comedy and is worth a listen on a long car ride.
The best collection of stand-up comedy ever has to be Woody Allen’s nightclub act from the mid 60s. The sheer consistency of brilliance and invention is I think unequalled, and may be impossible to better.
I’ll second this too. I have the albums of this and they’re great. The variety is awesome, and includes his moose bit, which is hilarious.
If you can find it, the Blue Collar Comedy Tour audio CD is great. Not the soundtrack from the movie, the actual live recording of the tour show. I saw the show live, and have listened to the CD so much I have most of it memorized, and it still cracks me up. And it contains Ron White’s Tater Salad routine.
I’ll second that. We took a Bob Newhart cd out from the library just for the heck of it, not expecting much, and the man was a freakin’ genius. It starts off kind of slow, and he has a very, very laidback delivery (which you probably already knew), but by the end of it, we could hardly breathe for laughing.
Oh, Dave Barry has some books on tape, too. We borrowed one from the library (Dave Barry turns 40 or 50 or something like that), and almost drove off the road from laughing. Hmm, maybe not the best road trip cd. 