The Best of Marcel Marceao

The use of silence in music is usually associated with the avant-garde; it’s considered cerebral high art that challenges our notion of what music can be and how we perceive it. In reality, silence is just as much a part of common art, too; the pauses between beats in your favorite pop song affect you just as much as every note that strikes your ear. On The Best of Marcel Marceao, we see how silence can even be used as a form of comedy—often called the lowest form of entertainment by people with no sense of humor. It’s ostensibly a novelty record, presented as a recording of the famous French mime Marcel Marceau performing his signature act. Both sides of the record appear to be identical: 19 minutes of silence, followed by two minutes of applause. It’s unclear if Marceau is really miming on the record—you can’t even hear evidence of an audience—but that’s what makes it funny.