Stan Freberg, Spike Jones, Tom Lehrer, Frank Zappa, Randy Newman, even Homer & Jethro are but a few of the influences that have shaped the sensibility of singer/humorist Martin Mull. Though he is almost never as funny or savage or heartbreaking as any of the above-mentioned at their best, the difference between his first and second albums suggests that by the third time around Mull may have evolved a comic identity that has the power of institutional subversion.

The first LP consists entirely of humorous songs a la Lehrer and Newman, but lack the venom of the former and the metaphysical dimension of the latter. "Ventriloquist Love," "Livin' Above My Station," "Partly Marion," and "Margie The Midget" are essentially one-joke songs about freaks and freakish relationships, in which an idea is presented but not developed…. The funniest song, "Miami," works as well as it does, because its subject...