Inside

That’s it, I’m putting the albums I recorded during lockdown up on bandcamp.

A bit nothingy really. I'd not heard of this before and it's already dated. It's less an album of music and more a gimmick or platform for another media.

Neither funny nor musically good, threw in the towel (with utmost contempt) after only 10 minutes.

As a big Bo fan this special really threw me for a loop when it dropped right in the middle of COVID malaise. There's always been a bubbling undercurrent of depression/mental health and the interplay between performer and audience in Burnham's work, but the isolation of the pandemic threw those themes into the very center of the work in an unsettling way. Musically, this is some of Bo's best writing – even the little interludes contain amazing accompaniments and great melodies. Some bits feel a tad unnecessary or scattered, but overall the LP serves as a damning encapsulation of struggles with mortality, isolation, and mindless consumption as artistic death. If this is your first listen sans the video component of the special I can get why you would dislike this, but I'm thankful that this performance was so music-heavy that it translates near-effortlessly to audio only. Worthwhile add for sure, one of the only comedy LPs (save for Weird Al but that feels different) that could justifiably be on the list.

Millennial core

Inside is an album themed around the COVID periode by musical comedian Bo Burnham. It handles subjects like isolation and mental health. The lyrics and humor are not very sharp apart from usage of the f-word. So if that is not a problem, it's is suitable for a large audience. I personally like humor to have some more rough edges and find it quite plain and boring. Even so it is far more entertaining than the other humorous contributions on this user list. The music is certainty not bad, often a bit musical stylish. The over-usage of autotune irritates me on some songs as other songs show it is not necessary as the vocal capacities of Bo are fine without it.

This album is definitely of a specific time (the pandemic of the early 2020s). I’m not sure if being outside of that time changes the way I hear this, or that it was originally part of videos that I have not seen, but I didn’t connect well with this. I really enjoyed writer/director Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade, so I had high hopes for this. It wasn’t completely without merit but for me there are other parody song artists that should be on this list well before this. There were of course clever moments, and for a guy making music alone in his house it isn’t bad. But the reasons to listen to this don’t really match with the reasons to be on a list like this for me.

Hell yeah 5

The best thing that came out of the pandemic. What a masterpiece.

Somehow missed this in 2021 and never got around to it. Thanks for making me! It earns its reputation and is now a great time capsule.

What a moment this was in the Covid-era. Bo has always been a real one but this piece of art masterfully touched so much of our terrible beautiful world. And Bezos I just goes so hard

10/10 I absolutely think this album is worth being on the 1001 albums list this album (but more importantly the special itself) perfectly captures so much of the exhausting monotony and the world-ending anxiety that psychologically infected everyone’s mind to an even more contagious degree than the virus itself a beautiful piece of pandemic-art that is (thankfully) outdated in a post-covid world, but still serves as a beautiful reminder of what once was

I've already watched the special and listened to the album separately. My opinion is roughly the same between mediums: it's great. A towering work of genius. Bo Burnham's magnum opus. The point at which he goes from a really good comedian to someone who's gonna be remembered for generations. Obvious 5/5. I do think it loses a lot as an album versus the Netflix special, so if you have Netflix would pretty strongly recommend watching that instead of just listening. The interstitial moments between songs and the visuals DO matter here. I also actively avoid listening to it/watching it end to end like this. Seeing a guy I'd been a fan of for a really long time just cut himself open and bleed (metaphorically of course) puts me in a real sad state. It hurts to see him this depressed. It feels like the Pagliacci the clown joke playing out in front of you with zero irony or insincerity. This is part of WHY it's so damn good, of course. But it does absolutely make this a sometimes food no matter how much I like it.

I must thank whoever added this here. It's a comedy album that still should be taken seriously. or the other way around - it's a serious album that uses comedy to lighten some of the messages. I've loved Bo for a while and the songs on this album some of his best. 9/10

When Inside came out on Netflix, it was clearly a masterpiece. However, it is as much a visual experience as it is in the words of the story. The songs are still good and funny. The vocals crisp clear (as it should for a comedy album, you have to be able to follow along well). But I feel that by audio only, I'm missing something.

It's interesting to evaluate this album in isolation from the video. Some of the songs feel a little cloying without the visual input that Bo provides. It's still good, but I would certainly go for the video version rather than the album if I had my druthers 4/5

Burnham has a brilliant way of discussing his struggles with mental health in a lighthearted manner. The music is somehow both satire and parody while being approachable.

Rating: 7/10 Best songs: Bezos I, 30, Shit, Welcome to the internet, Goodbye

Comedy, synth-pop. Ni fu ni fa.

I love a comedy album probably more than most. But I think I am too old for this to connect with me, not because of the content but because I’ve heard it done before (and perhaps a little better, I’m sorry) But of this was the first comedy album I ‘d ever heard I would probably like it more.

Great social commentary

There’s no doubt that Bo burnham is some kind of genius. His meta knowledge of modern society mixed with his ability to craft word play is unparalleled. Even at such a young age he was able to captivate with his internet songs and standup. Inside is a more complex Bo but still whimsical about all things. Overall this is a funny album that really doesn’t get much replay unless you really enjoy him. As far as music creativity goes this is impressive. 7.0/10

Really funny and clever lyrics with good vocals and music. But unfortunately not listenable with others or for repeats.

I was... disliking this pretty heartily as I was listening to it. The sort of increasingly rapid oscillation between self-loathing and smugness feels like the epitome of post-modernism barreling up its own ass. Certainly he's clever: is he funny though? I'm not sure I think he is. Maybe it all works better in the context of the full show. Beyond the content, I've written before of the pitfall I see in the completely solo musical composition - it's prone to a certain thinness of the single point of view, and this lacks the producer chops to evade that. I'm not giving this the score that review sounds like it merits, I think I'm being overly harsh on it. My head was definitely not in the space for appreciating this when I listened to it. The realest moment in this is when he briefly touches on struggling with panic attacks and it would have benefitted by being more heavily salted with that kind of reality.

I once had a dream that Bo Burnham was in love with me

Funny, but not really a proper album, just the songs from a comedy show.

This is of such a specific time that it's gonna be hard to understand in another few years. In the moment, it was a classic. Outside of that, it is so bizarre, rambling, and just confusing

I remember the hype this got when it came Out on Netflix. I couldn’t manage to watch the whole show, musical comedy just isn’t my thing. Listening back I got a few laughs to this, and white girls instagram is very funny. But it gets tiresome quick, so don’t think I’d have it on my list.

Yes I also thought that Welcome to The Internet was the greatest song of all time when it was viral, and it has not aged very well. There are some much worse songs on this album, but also a few actually funny ones. HAHAHAHHAHAH I said every now and then

I had to do a lot of thinking on this one. I love this "album", but it probably doesn't belong on this list. The video version belongs on some kind of list that probably doesn't exist, but not here. Bo is closer to a stand-up comedian than he is to someone like Weird Al. It's a comedy album that happens to feature music. It's like a 3/4 on the comedy scale in current context, but an easy 5 in the context of it's release. But musically, Bo basically produces jingle-quality music, which suits the comedy really well, with the occasional solid banger. If it wasn't for the comedy, this would be a 2, so that's where I'm leaving it. As a "thing" easy 4 maybe a 5, as an "album" solid 2.

I remember watching the thing when it first released. Wouldn't exactly say it aged well. Or, well, the ways in which it's interesting in hindsight don't quite overcome that it's just kinda obnoxious. There's a kernel of Something in there, though. It's an explicit piece of COVID Lockdowns Art, which *sounds* like it should be more interesting than all the media that elides that era... but in hindsight this thing's really more about just being generally insecure on the internet. But then one of the big legacies of quarantine time is more people getting flushed online & mainlining all of this stuff. I dunno! It's probably healthy for Burnham to be working through all this stuff for his own sake, but I'm not all that charmed by the end result.

A little too cutesy-fartsy for me. 2 stars.

Ugh, this was a chore to get through. Maybe it would have landed better in 2021? And almost certainly it works better with the visuals that it's apparently taken from? And god damn, it should've been half the length! Almost all of the humor elicits a half-smirk at best, though I guess I didn't catch anything that outright pissed me off. I dunno, I was thinking of scoring it 3 in the first part, then it dropped to 2 when I looked at the playlist and saw I was only barely half way through, and then it. kept. dragging. on. and. on. I don't find it as viscerally repulsive as Kid Rock or Limp Bizkit, so I guess I'll spare it a 1, but this is 1.5 at most. I am absolutely not going to give it a second listen. Fave track - Ehhhhhhh, let's say "Welcome to the Internet".

Comedy in music does not amuse me.

I don't have anything against Bo Burnham but this isn't really the type of music I like :(

Bo Burnham is probably one of the most famous comedians of recent memory. Or, at least, he WAS, but when he stopped making content for that stretch of time everyone kinda seemed to forget about him. That was, until this came out. INSIDE was HUGE, to the point where everyone I knew was watching it when it came out. I missed that window, but I was aware it existed well enough to hear Welcome to the Internet a few times before now. And my main takeaway is... eh? It's fine for what it is trying to do, I think, but it isn't all that funny, with lots of jokes that are basically "look, I'm white, and so I shouldn't comment on this, so this is my commentary." It's self-referential without actually putting a spin on most jokes, and that irks me. Whoa, the puppet said something out of pocket? Who could've seen it coming!! The music is easily better than the lyrics, but Burnham's auto-tune is distracting on even the best songs, and the balancing of humor and catchy songwriting is near nonexistent. Could he make an actually good song? Probably, he gets close on here a few times, I love the "harsher" tones on Bezos I, but this project is too focused on being "the return of Bo Burnham" rather than anything too deep, and it's more of a shame than anything.

A somewhat off-topic pick. Off-topic because this black comedy LP is more akin to internet "content" than a proper album for me. "Content" is the name of *Inside*'s opening track by the way, and it's kind of interesting that Bo Burnham's comedy routine often comes off as the very symptom of the societal ills the man lampoons or lambasts. Yeah, of course, he knows it (wink wink). And you know that he knows it (wink wink wink). And he knows that you know that he knows it (one wink times a hundred occurrences). By that point, when you've winked so much, there's no tear left in your eye to cry about this comedian's depression -- here fuelled by social anxiety -- or lament about the sad alienated state of our late-stage capitalistic hellhole, or laugh about the 2020 Covid pandemic for that matter! (plus, this latter event marks the project in its era in such an on-the-nose fashion that it has simply aged like milk, and this in only five years!) Cynicism and self-irony can only go so far. By that point, we've gone into so many pointless circles that we end up right where we started. Excellent comedians know how to elicit laughs AND tackle controversial issues in ways that can help you feel engaged to what they say, either confirming your worldview or challenging your own bias. Burnham can even do this himself at times (more on that later). But too often, he's mired in his own personal issues and obsessions, and he is not even particularly articulate about the whole thing. Which is why his comedy feels sloppy. Good if the thing was "therapeutic" for him. But I can't really see why I should be concerned by all those vaguely-phrased, narcissistic impulses within the "album". If a friend told me those sorts of things IRL I could at least exchange views with them, and maybe even help them if they deem my input valuable. But what can we do here, except passively "receive" those partly-ironical confessions in an apathetic fashion? It takes some cake lambasting contemporary apathy after that! As I said, endless cynical circles here... What's missing in my rant up there? Yep, that's right, a word or two about the *music*. But this is clearly no fault of mine since the music is most of the time "accessory" in this project. Which is also why I broadly consider this pick off-topic... The hooks of "Content" and "Comedy" set the tone in a pretty convincing manner at least (the "angelic", mock-religious undertones of the first chorus in the second song hit pretty hard, lol). And "That Funny Feeling", "All Eyes on Me" and "Goodbye" right at the end also manage Burnham to land on his feet on a musical standpoint somehow -- even if those tongue-in-cheek moody cuts are nothing extraordinary, and should be taken with a huge grain of salt anyway. Yet the real problem is 90% of what lies in between. Unfunny snippets, derivative exercises in style, jokes without any punchlines, one-minute "interludes" piled after other one-minute "interludes"... Let's face it: too often, *both* the music AND the black comedy stink. Just as in any bad "album" of any style, those tracks are screaming the word "filler" to my ears: take them away, and there's not enough "matter" to carry the project into a full-blown statement having clear "pay-off" moments in its conclusion (as I said, a couple of individual tracks there are worth a visit, including one rehashing the best one-liners found in the LP's best cuts) ; leave those fillers as is, though, and the whole endeavor becomes an endless drag to go through. It's a lose-lose situation. Does the use of the word "filler" mean I'm finally considering the project as a proper "album"? Well, I'm trying hard to. But no way I can consider it as one that's "essential" anyway. Three exceptions are saving this thing from my lowest-rated gallery though, either on a comedic level, or on a musical standpoint, or *both*: "How The World Works", "White Woman's Instagram", and "Welcome to the Internet". Anyone who likes societal comedy set into a prefect soundtrack should listen to those three hilarious little jewels (and I'm not gonna spoil the fun by describing what those songs are saying, even if you can probably deduce that from their titles). Here you have some real bite that's missing elsewhere, and it makes me want to thank the user who suggested this LP, no matter how we might disagree about it overall. Had all the rest been up to that level, maybe I could have reached a 3/5 or 4/5 mark. Unfortunately, the rest is NOT up that level. Looking for a punchline to end this overlong "review", but why should I bother when, most of the time, Bo Burnham himself doesn't conclude his performances with a proper punchline anyway ? As the man says in one song, he gets "paid" to do all this. Well, I'm NOT getting paid to find punchlines on this generator. So yeah, why should I bother, huh? 2/5 for the purposes of this list of essential albums 7/10 for more general purposes (5 + 2) ---- Number of albums from the original list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 465 Albums from the original list I *might* include in mine later on: 288 Albums from the original list I won't include in mine: 336 ---- Number of albums from the users list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 71 Albums from the users list I *might* select for mine later on: 88 Albums from the users list I won't select for mine: 169 (including this one) ---- Hey Émile ! Ça fait un bail que je dois te répondre, sorry ! J'ai été très occupé ces deux derniers mois -- il y a eu un petit souci de santé sans gravité, beaucoup de taf pour le collège et Erasmus, des trucs à faire pour Mowno... En parlant de tout ça, congrats for your new job at Publicis Montréal. C'est un peu toi le Don Draper québécois, maintenant, c'est ça hein ? 😉 Nan, j'imagine que tu es resté dans le graphisme. Et j'ai vu que tu étais toi-même bien occupé ! Réponses en vrac à ton dernier message : La Classe Américaine, c'est la découverte des plaisirs du Situationnisme en version light pour toute ma génération. Nous aussi, on a cité les répliques à foison !Les gars qui ont fait ça, travaillaient pour Canal + à l'époque, la quatrième chaîne de la télé française, ouverte à la fin des années 80. C'était à l'époque où la chaîne était 33% rebelle, 33% gauchiste, 33% gauchiste. Elle est depuis devenue 100% fasciste malheureusement, monde de merde indeed. Mais les gens qui bossaient dedans sont tous partis faire des choses ailleurs. Un des gars derrière le "flim" est devenu un "vrai" réalisateur de cinéma d'ailleurs... Pour ce qui est de la "users list" sur ce générateur... C'est une expérience vraiment différente. Ça va du encore plus obscur aux loupés très évidents du bouquin original, ce qui fait encore plus "montagnes russes". Mais j'ai quand-même découvert une poignée d'artistes notables... Donc oui, j'aime bien, mais je voudrais bien pouvoir avoir le choix de passer sur plusieurs disques par jour pour me concentrer sur les meilleurs, et aussi rattraper mon "retard". La liste gonfle à vue d'oeil au fur et à mesure où les participants finissent la liste originale, et à ce rythme, personne ne l'a terminera jamais. Un vrai tonneau des Danaïdes. Ou un rocher de Sysyphe. Je voudrais bien pouvoir des jours de "pause", et ne voir que les tous derniers ajouts au fur et à mesure où ils sont donnés. J'ai même envoyé un message à Alexander pour lui demander si l'option "plusieurs disques par jours" avait été envisagée. Il m'a gentiment répondu qu'il y avait pensé, mais que le consensus sur le groupe reddit après un débat à ce sujet était de ne finalement rien changer. Je pense que c'est une erreur, et j'espère qu'il reviendra sur sa décision. On verra bien... Sur le cinéma... J'en consommais pas mal jusqu'à la fin des années 2000, je suis fan absolu de certains réalisateurs (Lynch, Kubrick, Hitchcock, Scorsese, Paul Thomas Anderson, les premiers Coppola, quelques films de Tarantino et Jarmusch), et/ou de certaines œuvres phares (Blade Runner, La Nuit Du Chasseur, les trois premiers Alien, Moonrise Kingdom de Wes Anderson...), mais j'ai quasi-totalement lâché l'affaire depuis 15 ans. J'ai constitué une liste d'oeuvres apparemment marquantes sorties depuis 25 ans que je n'ai jamais vus. Il y en a au moins une trentaine (de mémoire y a Parasite, The Revenant, Get Out, Moon ou Moonlight)... Mais je n'arrive pas à trouver le temps de me poser devant un écran. Fait que ça change. Vu ce que je viens de dire de mes goûts cinématographiques, t'aurais une liste à me proposer ? Pareil, les séries, j'ai été un bien gros fan de certaines, mais je suis plus distant maintenant j'ai l'impression qu'il y a pas mal de chose surfaites qui ont une hype démesurée (dernier exemple en date, "Succession", dont les deux dernières saisons sur les trois m'ont décu. J'attends d'ailleurs de savoir si la fin de "Severance" a de bonnes critiques avant de me lancer. Par contre, *Mr. ROBOT*, c'est un truc incroyable, comme du Thomas Pynchon updaté à la dystopie actuelle, et la dernière saison, c'est banger sur banger, avec plein de twists bouleversants qui te donnent envie de tout revoir depuis le début. Sinon, je suis un fan absolu de The Sopranos et The Wire, les deux meilleures séries de tous les temps pour moi, indépassables (et finalement la matrice par laquelle toutes les séries "actuelles" se basent, sans en avoir le génie initial). Et y a bien entendu Twin Peaks, David Lynch oblige, dont les deux saisons originales ont forcément vieilli, mais qui reste l'autre matrice incontournable. Après ça, j'adore Mad Men (voir ma ref à Don Draper au-dessus -- là pareil, ça se visionne *plusieurs fois* un chef d'oeuvre de cet acabit, dirigé par un ancien de l'ésyipe des Sopranos d'ailleurs!), et sinon, j'aime beaucoup Six Feet Under et Breaking Bad, mais ces deux-là se placent un poil en dessous les précédents pour moi.... J'arrête mes réponses là pour l'instant. Je mets mes headphones, et j'écoute Angine de Poitrine dès maintenant. Je te ferai mon retour dans une prochaine réponse !

self hating white people are pretty dull

Okay, no, sorry this does not qualify as something I should hear before I die, unless I'm deaf of course. Trying too hard, it's just terrible. I drew the line at "Sexting" and moved on with my life.

Certainly an interesting snapshot of a time that is still very sensitive. I had heard his story before and probably saw this on a netflix special. As an album to be reviewed as part of this project? No thanks.

I respect Bo Burnham, he's one of the very few guys from the early days of Youtube who didn't fizzle out, but rather used it as a launchpad for a wider career in entertainment (and did so without taking any blood money from Saudi oligarchs or crypto scams!).. ..But also this is extremely "lol xd random" humor coded, plain boring and shallow social commentary that boils down to cramming as many quirky millennial Twitter/Tumblr slang into the lyrics as possible. He's also got a very flat production and delivery. Fine for comedy, not so much for an hour long album. Then again, I gave a 4/5 to the Neil Cicierega Shrek album and genuinely think it's funny and creative, so of course, more power to you if you enjoy this. I'm as far from an arbiter of comedy as you could possibly be.