On Incredibad it's the "boiled goose" line on "Boombox", the endlessly repeated chorus of "I'm on a boat!" from "I'm on a Boat". On SNL, that was most apparent in their "Dear Sister" sketch, its melodramatic, "O.C."-savaging death scene iterations getting funnier and funnier. The Lonely Island understand repetition and exaggeration. Also, the dudes found another way to respect their favorite genre: Their between-song skits aren't very funny. E-40, playing Carlos Santana on "Santana DVX", puts in the funniest verse on this premisey song, but Jack Black can't save the guys' one joke on "Sax Man". "Like a Boss" begins making fun of Rick Ross and Slim Thug ("Talk to corporate (like a boss)/ Approve memos (like a boss)," but ends with the singer fucking a giant fish, turning into a jet, and crashing into the sun.Ībsurdity is the Lonely Island's strongest suit, and thus, the premise-based songs sometimes fall flat. Like their best, "SNL"-aired material, these songs get better as they go on, mostly because of the way the lyrics carry the joke to its logical and grotesque endpoint. "Like a Boss" and "Dreamgirl" deserve video treatment on "SNL", but both are hilarious on their own. Even "Ras Trent", their riff on trustafarians, is more about lines like "Me toil part-time at ja Cold Stone Creamery" than Rastafarianism itself.Īlthough "Dick in a Box" and others are available online, the album-only tracks make it worth getting Incredibad, instead of firing up. Most of their jokes come inside the lyrics. Sometimes part of the joke is the contrast between the singer's subject matter and their delivery, ("Lazy Sunday", "Natalie's Rap") though the latter is really all about character destruction, not parody. These dudes, particularly beatmaker Jorma Taccone (who often writes with his brother Asa Taccone), are obviously hip-hop fans, as Incredibad is appreciative homage, more Beastie Boys than (simply) white and nerdy. Lonely Island don't sell genre parody or irony. But if you think the target of the satire is hip-hop itself, you're missing the point. Production and delivery-wise, "Lazy Sunday" and "On a Boat" are honest-to-goodness hip-hop tracks. Incredibad seems unique among musical comedy projects. "Just 2 Guyz" gets remade as "We Love Sportz" on Incredibad, but the amazingly awkward original remains the better track.) (The album also comes with a DVD of shorts, everything you've seen on "SNL" except "Iran So Far" and "I'm on a Boat", plus two older Lonely Island videos, "Just 2 Guyz" and "Bing Bong Brothers". All of those traits apply to their musical shorts, and thus to their first major release, Incredibad. They're more interested in sustained laughs, clinging tenaciously to tangents, or using repetition to unfold a new layer of weirdness in each iteration. Lonely Island's digital shorts don't care about the instant gratification of "SNL"'s premise-based sketches (a gratification so instant it usually ends minutes before the sketch does). That contributes to the stickiness of their videos. Because they came from the web, Lonely Island's "Saturday Night Live" work understands viral video, so much so that the bulk of their audience may come days or weeks after the original air date. Comedy fans first noticed the Lonely Island's Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, and Akiva Schaffer when their series, "The 'Bu" debuted on, a site that pushes or pulls comedy shorts based on viewer votes.
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