Bo Burnham’s Inside Album
Reflecting On The Hardships of 2020 Through Musical Comedy
written by rachel beckmann
Bo Burnham is an American comedian and songwriter. Burnham officially began his career at the age of 18 when he signed a 4-year record deal with Comedy Central. This would lead him to become the youngest person to record a half-hour special through this network, and later led him to release his first full-length album titled, Bo Burnham, the following year. Ever since then, Burnham has been taking to the stage to perform comedy specials in the form of music. In 2016, after seven years of live performances, Bo Burnham quit performing live comedy shows. According to his song, “All Eyes On Me,” he took this time to improve himself mentally. Burnham returned to the stage in January of 2020, stating that he had previously been hiding from the world and that he needed to re-enter. He follows this by stating: “And then... the funniest thing happened.”
Source: The Brock Press
March of 2020: Enter COVID-19. Stuck inside, Burnham continued practicing comedy from the comfort of his Los Angeles home. In his new special, Bo Burnham: Inside, Burnham begins with a song titled "Content," which goes something like: “If you’d had told me a year ago that I’d be locked inside of my home, I would have told you, a year ago, interesting–now leave me alone.” This seems to be something that we all can relate to. Looking back at 2020, as Burnham asks in the following song, "Comedy," we’ve all asked ourselves at some point: “What the fuck is going on?”
Throughout his documentary, he notes not taking a shower in the past nine days, apologizes for looking a mess, and bluntly mentions feeling high levels of depression during quarantine. Throughout the documentary, he mentions feeling bored in several different ways. Situations that give the impression of twiddling their thumbs in order to keep busy. For Burnham, that was the album.
Source: The New Yorker
In his song, "All Eyes On Me," Burnham reflects on his experience getting back into comedy during 2020, as well as the multitude of feelings he experienced while staying home for a year and a half. This documentary has its high and low points mood-wise, and it is in this song specifically that it pulls those heartstrings. In simple terms, he describes how things seem worthless in the midst of the pandemic; feeling a lack of hope for a brighter day. He references climate change, saying: "You say the ocean's rising, like I give a shit, you say the whole world's ending, honey it already did, you’re not gonna slow it, heaven knows you tried. Got it? Good. Now get inside.” Now, while he references this as feeling a sense of hopelessness to make any real change, this album is Burnham’s own form of activism. This is his way of speaking out regarding social injustice, white privilege, and even $213 billionaire Jeffery Bezos, the founder of Amazon, whose name has been recently under criticism for being one of the richest individuals on the planet. Burnham dedicates two songs to mocking his endless worth and, in general, the rich holding power in America. In an earlier song, titled “How The World Works,” he mentions how the world is built on genocide and exploitation.
Is he really that off base, though?
Source: The New York Times
To that end, 2020 was also the year of fighting for social liberties; calling attention to racism and white privilege in particular. Burnham, calling himself an “American white guy” voiced his thoughts on this privilege in both “Comedy” and “How The World Works,” respectively. He states how a specific group of individuals are acting as allies, but for their own benefits. Not for true social action, but rather only for being the center of attention, which ties into the white savior complex: where an individual acts as an ally to get the praise of doing so.
The overall impact of these songs within Burnham’s documentary, Inside, focuses on calling for change within the world. By releasing this post-pandemic special, it serves as a reminder that we all lived through 2020, and may have had similar experiences overall–whether you are Bo Burnham or the average Joe. For Gen Z-ers and Millennials alike, this special helped many individuals–not just in America, but around the world–get ‘back to normal’ and to truly see light at the end of the tunnel. Since its debut on Netflix, it has been nominated in six categories at the 73rd Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards, winning three awards including Outstanding Music Direction. To listen to Bo Burnham’s album, Inside, click here.
Source: Netflix
