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1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 Oh Death and Grief and Sorrow and Murder... Nov 09, 2009
I had this album on vinyl, but haven't actually listened to it since some time in the 1980s. I realized that my wife had never heard any Steve Martin, and I knew I had to get the cds. It was interesting getting the reaction of a totally new listener and comparing it to my own sepia-toned nostalgia.
The good: My wife laughed quite a bit more than I expected her to, honestly. There is a lot in this album that still holds up. Martin is great at building expectation and then taking a sharp left turn that makes you laugh out loud. The story about his girlfriend is still a classic.
On a personal note it was also great finally being able to share the source of so many of my own sayings, lines, and bits. I'd forgotten just how much of my own comedy comes from Steve Martin's early years, and I think this gave my wife an insight into my formative years.
The bad: I hate to criticize one of the true greats, but listening to this today I can clearly see that it was recorded and edited on the cheap. The sound quality isn't always very good, jokes from multiple shows run together in sometimes confusing ways, there is a little too much "filler" in some places and not quite enough in others, etc. If the original recordings of these shows still exist (fat chance, I know) I'd love to see someone recut them into a new album.
Also, as with almost all comedy albums, there are some bits that are a little hard to follow without the visuals. It's a shame, too, because the audience seems highly amused. But as I said, that's a problem with almost every comedy album ever made, so it's not a criticism. It's just too bad that videos of Steve's early shows aren't more readily available.
In short: this is still a great album, even so many years later. It's certainly dated (he calls himself a semi-professional comedian, the price of tickets is $4, and he complains about $15 ticket prices in Vegas) but the comedy is well-crafted, intelligent, and far less offensive than most of what you'll find today. There is some swearing, but it's all in service of the comedy and not just to be shocking. But best of all, the performance is subtle enough that it rewards close attention and repeated listening. Martin doesn't just spoon-feed the audience, he makes you meet him halfway. And it's definitely worth the effort.
0 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 Great in its time. Not anymore. Aug 04, 2009
You know how they say that movies have gotten much better than they used to be? Maybe not the scripts, but the special effects, the camerawork, the computerized color, the digital surround sound, etc? Meaning that, all other things being equal, when you watch a movie nowadays you're getting a much richer experience than those who sat down in a movie theater in the 1930's and 40's got.
Well, I feel that the same thing is true of comedy albums. (And I'm not talking about the advent of stereo.)
It would be pointless to claim that comedians these days are funnier: that's obviously entirely subjective. But I believe the standards for a comedy album have risen greatly, making a lot of these "classic" albums vaguely disappointing. Comedy CDs today are much more tightly edited; jokes are expected to come at a brisker pace without so much filler.
If you hop on YouTube and check out the work of some "old" comedians like Andy Kaufman and Lenny Bruce, you'll see what I'm talking about. Sure, those guys were funny in their time, but that was when comedy clubs were new and there weren't a lot of people who had mastered the art.
Consequently those performers were considered shocking and funny even though when you listen to their stuff now, it seems like ages go by before you get to a joke. Lenny Bruce talks for what seems like 5 minutes before he gets to a punch line and seems to depend almost entirely on cursing. Those who grew up with MTV would end up fidgeting nervously if they had to sit through one of Bill Cosby's full routines. The kind of "filler" so prevalent then wouldn't be tolerated today, when the jokes are expected to come machine-gun fast and can no longer hinge on your merely uttering naughty words. The upshot is that with the deluge of talent (and profanity) these days, the bar has been raised to the point where if you listen to these old albums now, they seem unforgivably slow-going and unexciting.
Which brings me to Steve Martin's "Let's Get Small," the album that catapulted him to superstardom. For the reasons explained above, this effort now seems only slightly more than passable. When you reflect upon how little seems to be here, you'll wonder how Steve Martin got to be so famous.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 30 years later, still hilarious, often side splittingly so.... Apr 05, 2009
Despite being over 30 years old, this album, Steve Martin's debut and arguably his best, is still amazingly funny. It's filled with some of the most memorable comedy bits in Martin's career, and despite hearing this album over and over again, it still sounds fresh and vital. A lot of comedy is topical, but Martin's standup here isn't. There are a few jokes about Carter, but aside from that, the album hasn't dated at all.
There is classic bit after classic bit here, none of which gets old. There's Martin's "exxxxcccuuuussse mmeeeeeeeeeeeee" bit, his great banjo playing, his lines about Vegas, the fact that the show only costs 4.50 to get in (!), his smoking bit "mind if I smoke? No, mind if I fart?", and the hilarious Grandma's Song, with some of the best lines I've ever heard in a comedy song, like "put a live chicken in your underwear". It also has some of the most surreal lines in a song. What the hell does "live in a swamp and be three dimensional" really mean? Or "be obsequious, purple, and clairvoyant" mean? Oh, hell, I don't know, and I don't care. The song is brilliant.
Another remarkable thing here is that Martin hardly ever swears in the routine. When he does, it makes it even funnier. When many comedians of the day were swearing and using coarse language, Martin generally kept it clean, and was still hilarious. Most modern comics, who swear a lot thinking it's automatically funny (it isn't, not by a long shot), should take a listen to this album and learn something from a master.
Classic Steve Martin Feb 22, 2009
This man was a genius in the 70's and even now - 30 years later - this stuff is still hilarious. If you're over 40, this is a great trip down memory lane. If you're under 40; treat yourself to a crazy romp you'll never forget!
 Funnier if Heard Jul 25, 2008
Being in my mid-twenties, I'll admit that my generation is more familiar with "Three Amigos" era Steve Martin, more so than "Wild & Crazy Guy" era Steve Martin. However, having seen him do SNL in the 70's (thanks to the DVDs) I was very interested and curious to hear this album.
The first thing I noticed was that the audio quality is quite poor. It's often VERY hard to hear what he's saying on stage. I usually listen to comedy albums when taking long road trips, and I had to max out the volume in my car to be able to hear at times. Secondly, some of his visual stick doesn't translate well to audio. However, since I managed to get this on a wicked awesome sale from Amazon, I got my money's worth of laughs and entertainment.
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