Is There Any Value to Be Found in the Intentionally Offensive Comedy of Andrew "Dice" Clay? | Splitsider:
The album was called The Day the Laughter Died and it's simply a brutal assault on the audience. At a certain point, the listener must pause to reflect on what it is they're listening to. Is it a comedy show or a punk rock piece of aggressive performance art? Dice is confrontational toward audience members, walking out many in the room and gleefully so. At the end of the album, he goes on a bizarre rant that is practically Kaufmanesque in its obliqueness.
It's an album recorded as a defiant answer to the critics who claimed that he was not a real standup comic. It's raw, unrehearsed and downright uncomfortable. It shows Andrew “Dice” Clay as a young comic at the height of his success purposely burning it all down in front of us. For those who gravitate towards standup comedy, it is this willful self-destruction that is part of standup’s appeal. The ability to get up on stage and be a raw nerve of emotion and destroy everything and slowly build it back up is a powerful and alluring skill to have in life and in art and it is something that Andrew Dice Clay has been doing for decades.
