VMP Magazine

Your turntable isn't just for music. Comedy records are a fine vinyl tradition, and novelty songs and parodies have been around even longer—heck, Mozart probably busted out a fart song or two. And while any idiot can sing the wrong lyrics over a pop song, these 10 records prove that, just as there's an art to constructing a joke, there are actual musical chops that go into making a good musical comedy song. While a stand-up album gets dull after you've heard the punchlines a few times, a good comedy album is something you can play at a party, or hum while you shop for groceries… and no one will be the wiser that you're actually singing about Stonehenge or cable TV or a weekend in a funeral parlor. So when you just can't take another miserable dirge, sappy love song or 10 minute guitar solo, we've got you covered.

Musical theater, like vinyl, is making a comeback. Once relegated to a handful of theater nerds, new shows like Hamilton and Fun Home, as well as revivals of classics like Hello Dolly! and Miss Saigon are making chorus lines and dance numbers cool again. But before you run off to buy the newest pressing of the Groundhog Day cast recording, fill out your collection with these classics.

What better way to display awesome concert memories and music ephemera than with a record album scrapbook and coordinating notebook? The oversized album covers are a near-perfect fit for standard scrapbooking pages, while the notebook is small enough to carry in a purse or a backpack, but sturdy enough to withstand the mosh pit.

Warren Zevon would have been 70 today. A songwriter's songwriter, he never found the same fame as his contemporaries–the Eagles and Jackson Browne among them–but he had plenty of fans, including Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Hunter S. Thompson, Stephen King and David Letterman, who hosted Zevon's last public appearance on The Late Show.

But, as he wrote in 2000, Life'll Kill Ya, and the man who famously sang "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead" died Sept. 7, 2003 from pleural mesothelioma, a lung cancer caused by exposure to asbestos. And though he left us too early, he left behind a comparatively small but genius catalogue far beyond the hit "Werewolves of London."

Nothing indicates that a person is well-read and clever like finding out that they have some well-loved Zevon records in their collection. These five albums are essential for any collection, and though they don't cover his whole discography, they're enough to get any listener started on a journey through LA's gritty back alleys, Africa's steamy jungles, and maybe a Chinese restaurant or two.