The Best Comedy Albums of 2009 (So Far)

The third album from Patton Oswalt finds the great comedian evolving and covering some unfamiliar territory, with riffs on being a new husband and father, coping with depression and getting older. Though it's a bit different than what we've come to expect from Oswalt, it's still a masterpiece of language, geekery and hilariously extrapolated concepts. Some of the anger has gone away (though he does open the album by announcing that "he hates"), but that's not to say he's softened -- merely refocused in different arenas. I love this record.

It was a very tight race for the number one spot between the Patton Oswalt album and Let Me Put My Thoughts In You, the second stand-up album from comedian Dana Gould. His is my favorite kind of comedy: bewildered by the world, slightly hostile towards it and forever applying logic where no one has bothered to apply it before (it's the kind of comedy that the greats like George Carlin and Bill Hicks trafficked in). It's the kind of album you could listen to once a month and always find something new to laugh at. If you don't already know and love Dana Gould, let Thoughts be your introduction.

The debut album from 26-year old comedian and Saturday Night Live writer John Mulaney is an incredibly polished and assured collection of stories and musings on everything from drag queens to the differences between The Godfather and Scarface (it's like lobster and Skittles, he suggests). A routine on Law & Order makes the album worth listening to alone, but luckily there's not a weak bit in the bunch. It's a great first record, and one of the most consistently funny you'll hear this year. I can't wait to see what Mulaney will do next.

This third stand-up album from the adorably odd Maria Bamford isn't for everyone. It's heavy on character comedy (Bamford is a whiz at voices -- not impressions, mind you -- and creating a host of entirely different personalities on stage) and routines that don't seem to connect, until you realize that the whole album is a reflection of Bamford's insecurities and neuroses. But, then, what stand-up album isn't? For those looking for something challenging and original, there's no better album this year than Unwanted Thoughts Syndrome.

Jim Gaffigan's latest album is yet another scathing critique of American excess disguised as the deadpan ramblings of an everyman schlub. You wouldn't know that funny routines about bacon and camping are actually social commentary, and Gaffigan is never pretentious or self-important enough to even hint at that fact. That's part of what makes King Baby so enjoyable; taken at face value, it's another collection of great Gaffigan runs on food and gluttony (complete with his trademark "voice of the audience" thing), but it can also be read as something much more subversive. Either way, it's incredibly funny. That's enough to earn it a spot as one of the best albums of the year.

Doug Benson's Unbalanced Load is a deceptively simple-sounding album; it's only with repeat listens that you realize just how clever a lot of its wordplay and structure really are. Few comedians are as off-the-cuff funny as Benson, and Unbalanced Load shows off how quick he is while always seeming utterly at ease and genial. It also sounds like he's having a great time on stage, and I can't think of another comedy record released this year that reflected the artist's joy of doing stand-up as well as this one.