Bo Burnham: Inside was released one month ago. Instant reactions missed the influences because they’re not comedic. Well, not exactly comedic.

This is not a piece telling you what someone else’s work means. This is not about the artists’ intentions. That’s entirely up to the artist and the audience. Obviously. Or at least that should be obvious but isn’t because that’s what the majority of takes about Inside seem to concern itself with.

This is a piece about context.

Bo Burnham: Inside is this year’s Hannah Gadsby: Nanette or Maria Bamford: The Special Special Special or The Original Kings of Comedy or Chris Rock: Bring the Pain or Eddie Murphy Raw. It’s the comedy special most likely to end up on year end best ofs and one of the most difficult to emulate. It feels wholly original whilst derivative of modern tech trends (Yes, TikTok.).

It’s not wholly original and not derivative of trends.

It’s great. It will most likely be my favorite piece of art in 2021. But it has been done before.

Harry Nilsson’s The Music Of Nilsson (Harry Nilsson In Concert, 1971) did a version of this type of performance 50 year ago. And it’s still great. What’s sticking from Inside is quite similar to what’s going on in performances and songs like, “Walk Right Back / Cathy’s Clown / Let The Good Times Roll,” “Think About Your Troubles” and “Coconut.” Hell, one of the most memorable songs on Inside, “How the World Works” is a spiritual continuation of “Think About Your Troubles.”

I do not think Burnham watched a BBC special that was released 20 years before he was born and thought, “I’ll do this for an entire year! No one will know what I’m stealing*!” I’m just connecting the two because both are great pieces of art from musicians at the top of their game.

When it comes to career trajectory, Inside is Burnham’s Kid A. In his fourth comedy special, Burnham is almost unrecognizable from his 2010 debut (I’m not counting his 2009 Comedy Central Presents as a special). Inside showcases an artist struggling to figure out where they belong in both the greater comedy world and their place in their own career. He’s using technology to its fullest potential, doing things in a comedy special never seen before. Radiohead’s fourth record does not sound like their first three records. The songs are about trying to figure out what they are and where they belong after massive commercial and critical success. They use technology in a new and different way, bringing tools like modular synthesizers and an ondes Martenot to their records for the first time. The first verse on the first song of the record, “Yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon,” would be an excellent tagline for Inside.

That’s the stuff I see throughout Inside. It’s not comedic so it’s not mentioned in any writing of the work. Nor are his non-stand-up peers.

Inside is amazing. Eighth Grade, the film Burnham wrote and directed in 2018, is great. His performance in 2020’s Promising Young Women is solid. Burnham is in a rarified class of performing artists working in mainstream entertainment with positive critical consensus. The only other folks currently on this level are Regina King (Starring in 2019’s Watchmen, winning a Best Supporting Actress for 2018s If Beale Street Could Talk, directing 2020’s One Night in Miami…) and Rob McElhenney (Co-creator, actor, writer, and executive producer of Mythic Quest and creator, writer, producer, director and actor in It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia). Yet Burnham’s work isn’t being viewed as part of a whole. Maybe it’s because it’s comedy, maybe it’s because it’s coming from a performer that found success as a teenager, but it’s difficult to find an evaluation of his work that cares about how it fits into more than just the comedy world.

I understand why this seemingly one-of-a-kind work garnered not-at-all-original reactions. It’s how the world works.

*He did steal Mr. Socko from Mick Foley.

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