Sandra Bernhard: I'm Still Here Damn It! (1998 Solo Broadway Show)
Sandra Bernhard's unclassifiable genius is on full display on this recording from her live performance at New York's off-off-Broadway Westbeth Theater. Not really a comedy album, this disc is an amalgam of song, cabaret, and cutthroat comedy. Her jokes do the usual job of skewering the vanity of celebrities ("Courtney, baby, what plastic surgeon is going to go in there and fix all the scars in your heart?"), analyzing modern life ("Caller ID! For the ultimate in passive-aggressive behavior!"), and observing the culture ("My favorite Spice Girl? The mother: Old Spice"). But it's Bernhard's ability to go from a tender story about an undemonstrative girlfriend to a scathing diatribe on designer perfume that makes her such an unpredictable, and unforgettable, comic artist.--Lois Maffeo