Bigger and Blacker is the third stand-up comedy CD by Chris Rock. If there is such a thing as sophomore jinx in music for second album, perhaps there is a jinx of some kind for third comedy album because this one is terrible, lousy, godawful, real crap, not even a coaster.
How can you tell it is terrible? Because it has 22, count’em 22 tracks. Because of the filler. Not since George Carlin’s A Place For My Stuff has a comedy CD had more studio-produced tracks and it is annoying. I thought only bad Saturday Night Live alumni had to resort to filler to get product out there but there you go. The Clermont Lounge tracks and the ODB Words of Wisdom tracks just take away from what you really want to hear on this comedy CD, Chris rock’s stage act. Janeane Garofalo makes a guest appearance by the way.
Bigger and Blacker is worth skipping not because Chris Rock does not tell funny jokes or have funny routines, he does, the man is brilliant, but it is a stand-up comedy CD you will not listen to very often because the sound quality is just not there. Whoever produced this comedy cd was asleep at the switches. There is no excuse to hear Chris Rock’s mike pop because he was speaking too close to it –and this happens sop often that the poomp poomp you constantly hear leads you to believe you are listening to a bad rap album– there is no excuse for the sound level to fade to a point Rock is barely audible and then be so loud your ears bleed.
The studio skits on Bigger And Blacker suffer from Saturday Night Live symptom: Too long and not that funny to begin with. Bigger and Blacker does contain some good material. “Black Mall” is a classic Chris Rock skit, as are “Race”, “NYPD”, and “Crazy White Kids” but overall, this is the kind of CD that ends up lost somewhere under a couch cushion or at the back of your comedy CD collection next to the 1000 Broadway Hits on One CD some misguided soul gave you for Christmas. When you burn a CD on your computer and it is lousy, you call it a coaster. Well Chris Rock was coasting on this one and the sound guy was sleeping
Chris Rock
Bigger and Blacker
Stand-up comedy CD
Dreamworks 1999
Atrocious Sound Quality
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