Margaret Cho — Cho Dependent

I think I have a pretty great sense of humour. It's oddball and weird, but I appreciate great comedy and enjoy laughing as much as I do making other people laugh.

Margaret Cho isn't one of my favourite comedians, but I do think she's right on sometimes.

That said, Cho Dependent, her new album, is so awful I had a hard time getting through it. Honestly, I only laughed once while listening to it. Once.

This isn't just because the jokes are bad, but its songs are horrendous. The point is Cho's making fun of music itself with them, but they're so badly written and the jokes are so atrocious that Cho Dependent is like repeatedly being hit in the head with a steel pole.

See, what Cho's doing with "Lice" (which is about, yes, head lice) is almost no different than what Sarah Silverman's done with tunes like "Poop Song." I say almost no different because unlike Cho, Silverman's songs are actually funny. That's because she takes a taboo (poo) and turns it into something resembling a children's song, which works.

But there's nothing really funny about lice, and even though they're reviled for personal hygiene reasons, writing about them and trying to get luls is about as funny as a plank of wood. I'm not even talking slapstick humour either, as in using a plank of wood to smack someone. I'm literally just talking about a plank of wood. Just lying there. Not being used for anything.

Not even guest appearances from Tegan And Sara, Ben Lee, and Ani DiFranco can save Cho Dependent.

While you shouldn't judge a work by its title or a book by its cover, Cho Dependent is as truly awful as its title. 

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