Rising to the top of the iTunes charts after one day of sales, The Lonely Island’s Incredibad, was exactly what was expected: absurd, offensive, and down right parodic genius.
Throned beside Flight of the Conchords and Weird Al Yankovich, the mocking musketeers reign over the kingdom of comedic song as they dually chastise the stultifying examples of pop culture, and pay tribute as their assumption of the different genres highlight modern trends.
Who?
The trio, Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, Jorma Taccone, have been making the magic since 2001. As twenty-first century troubadours, The Lonely Island spread their motets throughout the world-wide- web; as skyrocketing internet sensations, many of their songs like “Dick in a Box” (feat. Justin Timberlake), and “Lazy Sunday” (with Chris Parnell) originated as digital shorts on Saturday Night Live.
Other spit-taking sing-a-longs like “Jizz in my Pants” point out the hipster lifestyle in such a moronic way that it flings back around to the other edge of the spectrum where humor is poignantly crafted. Plus, who knew premature ejaculation could be so funny?
I'm On a Boat
Not only does this triad have their own website dedicated to their opus, Lonely Island is the epitome of YouTube triumph. With a five star rating, and over twenty-two million hits, the response to "I'm on a Boat" is unprecedented. With such lines like "I got my swim trunks, and my flippy-floppies, I'm flipping burgers, you at Kinko's straight flipping copies" the lyrics pose as hip-hop lexicon.
Evident in the Digital Short, “I’m on a Boat” bashes the ridiculous gaudy lifestyles of rapper cult followings. Pushing the envelope with T-Pain himself, emphasizes the embodiment of hip-hop videos and how they are all alike, made from the same blinged-out cookie-cutter: garish accouterments, references to their “lady counter-parts”, and explicit language in every phrase morphing from adjective, to noun, to verb spewing from their grills.
Stars Getting Involved
Current TV, movie, and music stars are getting in on the Lonely Island bandwagon. Aforementioned Justin Timberlake and T-Pain collaborated with the trio, but stars like Natalie Portman who made a SNL Digital Short with Andy Samberg parodied the callous interview process. Also, "Sax Man" features Jack Black.
While high-brow comedic pretentious types may take offense to the work of The Lonely Island, the audience that embraces the triad have a greater understanding of sociological culture because sometimes we need the artist/comedians to tell us when we are being just plain stupid.
The humor rises from the acknowledgment of the absurd pop culture trends. But even better than that, they can’t help but make everyone laugh really hard.
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