The State: Comedy for Gracious Living

So, you may be aware of The State. In a recent development for this year, the unreleased comedy album of the The State has been released into the Internet, Comedy for Gracious Living.

There are a variety of different reasons for this album not being released depending on what you read, from the album being too surreal, to the album being too vulgar, to a general lack of interest on the part of Warner Brothers to release it after recording it.

From listening to this, I can say that it is indeed surreal and vulgar but certainly interesting, and surely something a fan of The State will want to listen to.

Surreal, you got songs about cash registers that tell your life story but are difficult to read with a welder's helmet on as per doctor's orders. Like that.

Vulgar, you got a discussion over whether to eat a bowl of French Onion soup or a bowl of shit, a man shouting at furious length about male teenage butts, and a casual discussion over the repeated baking of a penis into zucchini bread. So, basically everything they couldn't get away with on MTV.

It's really too bad that this album wasn't released as it should have been in 1995, as it surely would have sold a good amount of copies. It's certainly like having another episode of The State available for listening, which is part of the downside. Some bits are really crappy, where you can tell they were just fucking around. Some are genius. My personal favorite is "Doctor Shrinkyballs" which is a recreation of an old-time radio play in which a Mad Scientist has developed a way to shrink balls.

So yes, this album is exactly like another episode of The State.

The other downsides are that there's a little warbling on some tracks of the recording which sounds like tape running a little slack. Also, if you're playing this for someone who has never seen The State before, it may not be a good starter. They may be offended. They may not talk to you again.

For the rest of us, thank goodness there is the Internet for such things as this to be released by clearly someone affiliated with The State who does not want to be identified for legal reasons.