Inside (The Songs)

Following his fourth comedy special, 2016s Make Happy, a then-25-year-old Bo Burnham announced his potential retirement from comedy. Later citing increasing anxiety and on-stage panic attacks, he went on to write and direct his first movie, 2018s Eighth Grade, and appear in films including Best Picture Oscar nominee Promising Young Woman (2020). With his mental health improving, he planned to return to the stage in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit the States, forcing an abrupt halt to any such gatherings. Sheltering in place for about a year, Burnham wrote, composed, performed, shot, and edited his fifth special, 2021s Inside, alone at his home in Los Angeles. In the 90-minute show, the chronically self-aware Burnham captures the lockdown state of mind with chilling precision -- depression, motivational struggles, and all -- as he makes his way through 20 original songs represented here on the nearly hour-long Inside (The Songs). He does well to address uneasy topics --- the appropriateness of humor in the time of a deadly pandemic, speaking from white male privilege during a call for minority representation -- right out of the gate on self-depreciating songs like Comedy and How the World Works. The latter is a bouncy, kid-friendly keyboard ditty that has sock puppet Socko delivering rhymes like, The global network of capital essentially functions/To separate the worker from the means of production. He delves into social media and technology on tracks including White Womans Instagram, Sexting, and Welcome to the Internet (Could I interest you in everything all of the time?); comes to terms with turning 30 on the self-loathing 30; and later discusses his panic attacks with a highly processed alt-R&B on All Eyes on Me. By the time he reaches repetitive closing track Any Day Now, its clear that Burnham has delivered a comedy classic as well as a snapshot of the time. His fourth comedy-genre number one, Inside (The Songs) went all the way to number seven on the Billboard 200 upon its release in mid-2021. ~ Marcy Donelson