Editor’s Note: In the event that you find yourself endlessly scrolling through a gauntlet of streaming services for something to watch, and you come across a comedy special you may not be familiar with, chances are the first question you ask yourself, as you contemplate your next move will be something to the effect of ‘Is this something worth an hour that I can’t get back?’ — and we are here to help you shuffle through the latest and greatest comedy releases to make sure that hour and change is well spent. Welcome to The ReVue Stage. Here in this little corner carved out in Vanyaland’s comedy coverage, we have you covered when it comes to dishing out the good word on everything from new specials and albums, to books and even recaps of live shows. It’s all killer no filler around these parts, comrade. So kick back and let us help you figure out your next dose of comedic relief.
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Whether he’s imitating that weird kid that has a problem with everything or employing his guitar to pen a cheeky little ditty that thrives on pop culture stereotypes in a comical way, Kyle Gordon has become a viral force to be reckoned with. Now, he’s building onto his musical repertoire with quite a hearty handful of tributes to different genres that delightfully balance instrumental precision with comedic intellect from start to finish.
Throughout his debut musical comedy album, Kyle Gordon Is Great, which made its way into the world earlier this month, the layers that Gordon employs to deliver these 15 tracks showcase every aspect of what have made his years on the grind such an attractive act.
Within the interludes in between each song that bring you into the all-too-familiar sounds of drive time radio shows, Gordon introduces a plethora of perspectives as he delves into the minutiae of the details that truly makes music’s biggest genres both lovable and worthy of disdain. However, it’s all delivered with much more than just comedically accurate exaggerations in pop, country, emo and techno music.
Anchored by the hit single “Planet of the Bass” — which took the world by storm last summer — l it’s immediately obvious that the instrumentals of the album aren’t a cheap or hacky attempt at creating simple, cheeky joke songs. Gordon pays his respects to the elements that make each genre so unique (and at times, cringy), all the while illustrating outrageous portraits of the characters he’s enveloped himself in to execute each song.
Whether it’s the shimmery Shania Twain-esque southern twang of “Girls Are The Best (In The World)” or the American Idiot-adjacent melodramatics of “My Life (Is The Worst Life Ever),” Gordon exercises the character work that has made him such an enjoyable staple on TikTok FYPs. Aside from the chuckles these characters provide, though, the truly impressive aspect of the whole thing, from the rarely explored genre of Bossa nova with “Ugliest Girl On The Beach” and the galloping outlaw country ditty “Wanderin’,” all the way through to the very end of the jolly good gang vocals of what is sure to become a holiday favorite this time of year in “The Irish Drinking Song,” it’s Gordon’s creative versatility that really equips each chunk of this record with its own unique world of excitement that makes it all too easy to listen to this album from start to finish every time you turn it on.
The complexities of this album’s makeup are what, oddly enough, make it such a simple delight. So, if you need something to help deliver some quick laughs that will surely become catchy verses stuck in your head, Kyle Gordon has you covered for at least 26 minutes.