VIDEO Louis CK announces new album on The Daily Show

 

Louis CK’s new album is so top-secret, he hadn’t even announced its impending Saturday release….until last night, that is, and with one of the most visible platforms of all: Jon Stewart’s penultimate episode of The Daily Show.

Louis CK stopped by the second-to-last episode ostensibly for a nice, sensible, goodbye chat with Stewart–one full of fond memories and wistful good-byes. His newest album, Live at the Comedy Store, came out just a few months ago, so he didn’t really have anything to promote. And his crazy successful 2015 tour ended this past winter, with a string of three sold-out shows at Madison Square Garden, so there were no new dates for him to plug.

Stewart and Louis CK’s chat was indeed notable for its fond memories, plus the two of them joking about how they’re going to die within one minute of each other, one month from now. Here’s the whole exchange:

 

 

But then, out of nowhere, we get the news that there’s a new Louis CK album to look forward to–and it’s coming out this Saturday. Live at Madison Square Garden was taped during at least one of the three MSG shows from earlier this year, and it’s still such a new thing that there isn’t a single mention of it on Louis CK’s web site.

Probably the best part of all of this news is the strong suggestion in the clip above that Louis CK is just going to release the thing under a pay-what-you-want license. Why? Because, in his own words, the show “isn’t very good.” Most of the material on it comes from Live at the Comedy Store–it was recorded on the same tour, after all–and “the mix isn’t very good,” either. So it might be a really poor performance of the same stuff you can get for $5 on the pristine Comedy Store album. It also might be a really good Louis CK show, one that demonstrates the completely different dynamic of a comedian working an arena with 15,000 people in it instead of a club with 250.

It sounds like the show won’t cost more than a dollar, though–at most–and we can all hear it for ourselves this weekend.

 

(Photo credits: Louis CK; screencaps via YouTube)