![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/mojo_nixon_manifesto.jpg\")
Years ago while watching some or other \u201cmadcap\u201d comedy film, I came to a realization: drama is comparatively easy, but comedy is difficult. It\u2019s a fairly straightforward affair to tug at a viewer\u2019s heartstrings; it\u2019s quite another matter entirely to make them laugh.<\/p>\n
The same is true in music; writing a weepy ballad \u2013not to say an especially good one \u2013 is not a great challenge. But crafting lyrics that will bring the listener to laughter is a much more daunting proposition. And doing it in a way that rewards multiple listens is even more of a challenge.<\/p>\n
But that has been the chosen creative path for Mojo Nixon. Starting in 1985 and continuing through the end of the 20th<\/sup> century, he released a steady stream of albums that showcased his wickedly irreverent brand of humor. Six of those (and an EP) paired him with instrumentalist Skid Roper, four found him backed by his group The Toadliquors, and one (Otis<\/i>) was a \u201csolo\u201d album featuring guests like Roscoe Ambel, Dick Montana and John Doe. All of those (plus Nixon\u2019s final solo release before retiring from music, 2009\u2019s Whiskey Rebellion<\/i>) have been brought together in a new boxed set, The Mojo Manifesto: The Original Album Collection<\/i>.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a fair question whether anyone needs a tidy box containing all of Nixon\u2019s material. Without a doubt, he did provide some of pop music\u2019s funniest moments with songs like \u201cElvis is Everywhere,\u201d \u201cDebbie Gibson is Pregnant With My Two-Headed Love Child\u201d and \u201cDon Henley Must Die.\u201d Whether his topical rave-ups have resonance today is an open question. It\u2019s a safe bet that anyone who wasn\u2019t around at the time of its release might be perplexed to hear Nixon sing the eternal couplet, \u201cI ain\u2019t gonna piss in no cup \/ unless Nancy Reagan drinks it up.\u201d It was transgressively hilarious enough in 1987, but context is everything, and pop culture touchstones have changed a thousand times over since 1987.<\/p>\n Still, the rip-roaring music is fun, a kind of snapshot of one man\u2019s irreverent take on the MTV era. And with that in mind, the boxed set provides one of its two wonderful bonus items: a seven-track DVD, Mojo Nixon Video Collection<\/i>, with videos for some (but not all) of his best-remembered tunes.<\/p>\n The other bonus item is a substantial booklet. With full annotation and credits for each of the albums therein, the booklet also features essays for each of the discs. And rather than assign the liner note essay gig to a single writer, Manifesto has taken a more creative route, enlisting the talents of a variety of writers including Doe, Robert Gordon, Ambel and others. The booklet is jam-packed with photos and memorabilia as well.<\/p>\n The wrangling that must have been required to bring these reissues together \u2013 they came out on a variety of labels including IRS and Enigma \u2013 displays the sort of dedication one might expect to find directed toward a, shall we say, more mainstream (or at least well-known) artist. But for those Mojo Nixon fans who simply must have it all, The Mojo Manifesto<\/i> is just the ticket. Will it sell? That\u2019s anybody\u2019s guess. If it does, Nixon \u2013 who these days is a Sirius XM deejay\/host \u2013 might just ask the musical question he posed on 1986\u2019s Frenzy<\/i>: \u201cWhere\u2019s my money?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Years ago while watching some or other \u201cmadcap\u201d comedy film, I came to a realization: drama is comparatively easy, but comedy is difficult. It\u2019s a fairly straightforward affair to tug […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18964,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,21,49,62,65],"tags":[4229],"class_list":["post-18963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comedy","category-cowpunk","category-new-release","category-rawk","category-review","tag-mojo-nixon","cat-18-id","cat-21-id","cat-49-id","cat-62-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18963"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18963\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19049,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18963\/revisions\/19049"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}