There aren’t too many products that can be sold on the premise of being “best of the worse” or “guaranteed to offend”. But then these days there aren’t too many comedy CDs being released. You can understand why, the youth of today have YouTube at their fingertips with something hilarious being a click away, while others – it saddens me to say – wouldn’t even know what a CD is. The older generation not only know what the latter is but they still buy and listen to ‘em, so for events like Fathers Day compilations such as Politically Incorrect Volume 1 are a good tie-in and last minute gift.

This set features 20 tracks that combine traditional stand-up bits with musical comedy (think Chris Franklin’s novelty single, “Bloke” to name a few). The roster includes classic acts like Monty Python, Eddie Murphy, Robin Williams and Peter Cook & Dudley Moore plus local favourites: Kevin Bloody Wilson, Steady Eddy and Garry Who.

Without giving away too many gags, a lot of the material seems to form comedy’s perennial themes of choice: dick and fart jokes; swearing; men vs. women (and pure misogyny); racial stereotyping (think Russell Peters who makes an appearance here); drinking; and pot shots at easy targets like the disabled. The gags can be quite acerbic and bitter and in the case of George Smilovici who spends almost 9 minutes boasting how tough he is for a multitude of reasons, the funniest line actually comes in response to a heckler. It is: “I’ll take a look at your family tree and tell you it’s a cactus. Full of pricks!”

For my money, it’s the acts that veer off the beaten track or provide wit and sarcasm in more left-field thinking that are the funniest. For instance, Heath Franklin’s Chopper who details his dislike for Jeff Buckley (“For a bloke who had one album, he has a lot of albums”) and the mental image of upsetting the singers’ fans by turning up to a tribute concert wearing floaties is funny, if not a tad rough. Or say, American comic, Eddie Ifft who reckons if Americans were to drink like Aussies: “They’d make us go to meetings!”

There’s no denying this collection will divide people. Some will find it too offensive and call talkback radio while others will think a new Celine Dion record is a far greater insult to humanity. So in rating it I’ve decided to fence-sit because some people will think this is the funniest shit ever while others will just think it’s shit.

Review score: 5/10.