Congrats On Your Success!

Album Review

Comedian Dan Levy is a semi-regular on the Chelsea Lately roundtable, a staple of the CollegeHumor website, and a likable fellow to boot. It’s his skillful use of the latter that makes his debut comedy album, Congrats on Your Success!, so funny as Levy puts the nice guy act on one moment (pretending he’s never heard of those “extras” you can get in certain strip clubs) and then skewers the listener with some snuck-in, straight-up vileness (years later, he meets the offspring of my “My Friend's Dick Pix” and hits them with “Oh my God, do you know how your parents got together?”). The problems of Internet Age dating, the clampdowns of airports post 9-11, and the sexiness of Justin Timberlake are some of the over-familiar topics that are still of great service to Levy, who also recalls early Bill Cosby with his “Karate Class” routine and about five percent of all water-cooler talk when the topic turns to Radio Shack and why the heck they’re still open. Drop Bob Newhart’s deadpan delivery and put him in the drug-fueled, Web-loving world of 2011 and you’ve got Levy’s so-unhip-it’s-hip act in a nutshell, which is meant as both a compliment and a recommendation.