Kidd's Komedy Gold Collection, vol 1

It's not often that I'm so taken by a site that I feel compelled to link it, but if you really want a decent trip into the history of popular culture you must visit this one.  It is with all due credit that I use their resources.  Featuring LP covers from the '50s, '60s and '70s, this site often provides little by way of explanation for their pictorial exhibits of a bygone era, leaving us - the visitor - the challenge of working out the content ourselves using only visual cues.

The site's collection is huge.  Youi can easily spend hours clicking through it the same way you would browse a CD store.  For this article I have limited myself to the 'Comedy' genre, even though the rift between my Gen X cynicism and these Boomer  and pre-Boomer examples have left me more baffled and concerned than amused.

Pokerface?  I hardly even know her face!
Humour back in pre-CD days was a tough gig.  If you wanted to flourish in the medium of vinyl records you had to catch the customer's eye, either by over-explaining the contents or misleading them into thinking they were buying pornography.

Translated into modern English, this album essentially says, "this is funny because it's funny, with funny content that is also cheeky, but mainly funny."  Oh, and words like 'spicy', 'crack-up', 'sin-cerely', 'notorious' and 'tainted'?  They all mean 'funny'.

The Sex Detective necessarily loves the old timey, film-noire terminology, so any pun that involves the word 'skirt', 'dame', or in this case 'broad' will soon end up as a printed t-shirt in his wardrobe.

Aaand then we reach the bottom end of the sexy pun spectrum.  Sigh, yes I did just say that, but at least I don't appear on album covers as an overweight, undiagnosed compulsive masturbator.

When you're stage nickname is 'Pap', the only way you can further demean them is to take them on a low-budget travelling Donkey Show.  Once again the content must be emphasised by using several words that mean 'comedy content'.

Hahahaha!  It's funny because he's getting divorced!  And to top it all off, he's Ukrainian!

I'm starting to think that Ukrainian comedy albums were their own sub-genre back then.  They also tried muscling into the Irish-theme pub game, but instead of treacley beer and whiskey they opted to stock the shelves with 'Drugs and Immorality'.  It was only a matter of time before a pair of rudeboys busted in, brandishing an air-rifle complete with hand-written bayonet warrant to arrest the outdoor publican for (among other things) 'getting rich'.  Sorry, Mickey, but even your pet fox can't save you this time.

I don't know what's worse here: the Steinbeckian cover art of a crazed drifter throwing up gang signs, or the fact that this is the sequel to an album about rural toilet songs.  Either way, it's definitely 'not for youthful consumption'.

The early '60s were a crazy time, what with the commies wanting to flash-fry the US and Kennedy making careless comments like "Castro AND Vietnam?  I'd rather have a bullet in the head!"  Still, Tito Hernandez was able to rise above the panic and release a satirical album about Cubans who carry toy artillery and avoid footwear.  As the for white guy painted up as a cannibalistic Zulu?  That's what you get when your only education on racial profiling comes from Bugs Bunny, I guess.

What do you do when racism comes lunging at you like a constipated space-zombie?

So, aside from those disturbing suction-cup things on the lady's boobs, I have to say that I'm a little unimpressed by this one.  Surely, if your name is Jak Parti, and you're releasing an album designed for parties, wouldn't you call it 'Parti Time' instead?  Maybe he simply didn't make the connection until after and is still slapping himself in the grave. 

Before the age of the double-entrendre there had to be an era of the single-entendre, as evidenced by this piece of classic entertainment from Madame Mame.  With cult hits like 'I Never Saw Such Knockers', and 'I Blew Louie in St Louie', this album avoided the confusion naturally evoked by metaphors and innuendo.

When you're old, fat and posing your naked bulk for an album cover, your choice of catch-phrase is already limited, I'm afraid.

Quick, name AC/DC's first album?  High Voltage?  Wrong, it's the utterly horrible one with the disgusting smoking vagina on the cover instead, which came out in '73.  Any guesses why it was dropped from their discography?