Best Female Stand Up Comedians on Spotify

Female stand up comedians are often provocative and challenging. As battering rams for expression they question the world as an artist, as a woman, as a human. They speak truth, emotion, life, pain, brilliance, confession, hyperbole, faults, and fears into existence. They are pure catharsis; savvy and hardworking. They investigate indignities, take ownership of their stories, are joyously caustic and boldly resigned. Their totality is limitless: low comedy with a high register, demanding love with guttural crass, commanding respect with irreverent class, wisdom with a vocal fry. They attract attention and admiration, sex, drugs, and rolling hecklers. Female comedians are the ultimate avatars for agency. Their lives, their stories, their bodies, their feelings, their identities are fully realized onstage. The Best Female Stand Up Comedians on Spotify have something to say and then some. They are the best that comedy has to offer.

Half of humanity being underrepresented in anything is a bitter irony. This particular half of the population, known for intuition, intelligence, and inventiveness being underrepresented in stand up comedy – an art form that requires those things- is damn near criminal. Comedy at its very best empowers the underdog. It provides something unexpected at the very least. Female stand up comedians are both underdogs and unexpected. They defy every historical, societal, and cultural barrier.

Every female comedian is a trailblazer in her own right. Every female comedian is a revelation. It’s an unfortunately common experience to be caught off guard, to be blown away by polished, well-crafted and undeniably talented women with decades of being professionally funny under their belts. There’s no good reason for so many unsung heroes and hidden gems. It’s time for them to get their due. It’s time for them to shine.

Take a listen to these classic comedy albums from the Best Female Stand Up Comedians on Spotify.

Marga Gomez

“Hung Like A Fly” by Marga Gomez is amazing. It is sophisticated with graceful poise and worldly, nimble observations that titillate but never overindulge. Smirking wit, passion, histrionics, and playful hyperbole, an absurd and oddly rousing Disneyland erotica imagined as a lost Anaïs Nin journal. Gifted with brilliant theatrics and mimicry, Gomez is relatable and charming while at the same time illusive and exceptional. “Hung Like a Fly,” released in 1998, is a layered, rich, electric rendering of the time. Marga’s refreshingly elevated way with words makes allusions and anecdotes buzz by. This album achieves light and depth; it is imaginative but grounded. Marga Gomez glides through sociopolitical commentary and cultured farce, fantastic with actorly gravitas. It’s great!

Felicia Michaels

Felicia Michaels is tough. “MILF & Cookies,” her comedy album, is a rush. Each track requires the audience to expect the unexpected. Felicia is a mom at war with her children, her dating life, her divorce. Her revving saltiness expresses forthright, no-nonsense hilarity. Passive aggressive needling often boils over to aggressive declarations. Felicia Michaels is controlled fury, sarcastic saccharine and unique perception. “MILF & Cookies” doesn’t just turn misconceptions about motherhood, sex, and relationships on their head, the comic slams them into the ground. Her conversational tone and confrontational spirit are candid and captivating. Her sour-coated rebellion holds idiots’ feet to the fire. Clashes with the audience and charismatic crowd work capture  boozy, chaotic comedy club naturalism. Felicia Michaels is an awesome comedian and “MILF & Cookies” radiates her blustering bravado.

Margaret Cho

Margaret Cho is so prolific and expansive that it’s easy to forget how much of a prodigy she was in the early-mid 90s. The seeds of the eclectic, one-of-a-kind Renaissance woman are evident in her entrancing debut, “Drunk With Power.” The seeds themselves, jokes and stories about body image, family, and community, are extraordinary in their own right. Her openness, neurotic misadventures and fearless impersonations, spill out with cartoonish candor. Margaret Cho is a  first generation All-American badass from San Francisco. She paints her world filled with embarrassing moms and annoying drug dealers in broad, visceral strokes. Drunk With Power, released in 1996, is one of the best representations of the decade’s unfeathered, multicultural free-for-all. Many standouts of the emergent, unaffected, Gen X, slacker counterculture were being given a platform by the mainstream, Margaret included. Some groups, identities and communities were being featured for the first time, by those people, for those people, again, like Margaret. Margaret Cho’s stand up is the unapologetic blast of class, race, gender, sexuality, and politics. Drunk With Power is fresh and vibrant, opinionated but unpretentious, a wonderful comedy album.

Marsha Warfield

Sexy. Cool. Marsha Warfield doesn’t just embrace a devil may care, cavalier, bawdy brand of stand up comedy, she’s the best to ever do it. Marsha Warfield is a genius. She doesn’t tell it like it is, she positions what’s universally unspoken in such a way that the truth tells itself. Her comedy album “This is Not Gross, This is Important,” features raw, ripe, nuanced jokes about sex with complex, charismatic cleverness. No cheap, shock humor either. The ornate, intelligent ways Marsha Warfield speaks openly about what’s typically hushed is noteworthy. Wet spots, penis envy, and menstruation are addressed with frankness, scholarly care, and precision. Her dry, sly observations delight in mischievous, matter of fact, meticulous and metered sarcasm. Marsha is confident, unflappable. She is fully liberated and actualized. When a blowhard heckler tries to jump in, she shuts him down by simply declaring she doesn’t care. It’s tremendous to hear how much Marsha Warfield is in control.