Since leaving “Saturday Night Live” in 2012, it might appear that things aren't going as planned for the Lonely Island, the New York-by-way-of-California comedy troupe consisting of Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, and Akiva Schaffer. Samberg’s jump into full-time movie making hasn’t quite stuck, leading to one film he’s hoping that everyone will forget about and one that seemed like a minor hit at first but turned out to be somewhat lifeless. Schaffer’s turn in the director’s chair for a pair of features-- 2007’s criminally underrated *Hot Rod *and 2012’s underwhelming The Watch-- suggest he’s not quite ready for the upper tier in that role. Taccone is better known for his “Girls” character than for his own modern cult classic MacGruber, though he’s certainly making a bundle as director for those ubiquitous “It’s Not Complicated” commercials for AT&T. (Taccone technically left his job at “Saturday Night Live” before Schaffer and Samberg but continued to collaborate on Digital Shorts.) In a certain light, another Lonely Island album might seem like a desperate attempt to reinvigorate a fanbase that might have lost interest in the collective’s breed of joyfully silly farce.
Luckily The Wack Album is just as good as their previous collections, 2009’s Incredibad and 2011’s Turtleneck & Chain. Knowing that the tracks would likely be divorced from memorable, NBC-funded visual complements this time around (a song like Incredibad’s “Natalie's Rap” surely got the benefit of the doubt by merit of having a deviant Natalie Portman trashing shit in the “SNL” counterpart), it feels like the Lonely Island puts a little more oomph into the songs themselves, a little more intelligence into their parodies of overused rap album staples. (The operatic, hilarious leadoff “Dramatic Intro” and the ridiculous “I’m a Hustler (Song?)” are genre sendups as effective as any they’ve ever done, which includes the sublime “Jack Sparrow”.) Sure, a few jokes fall flat, and a few run out of steam really fast-- the song where Andy raps from the perspective of Michael Bloomberg (“I Run NY”), two separate songs where they swap out “fuck” for “honk” and “hug”, respectively (“Hugs”, “I Don’t Give a Honk”)-- but that’s typical of a Lonely Island or, for that matter, a Weird Al record.
Lonely Island’s jokes, for the most part, invent a ridiculous world and push the silliness to extremes, stretching the same idea in different directions (“YOLO”) or continuing their mastery of sending up bro culture (“We Are a Crowd”, “The Compliments”). Sometimes the song might hint at a deeper meaning or stance; for instance, in a recent Pitchfork interview, the group framed “Spring Break Anthem” as their statement about gay marriage. Others, like “You’ve Got the Look” or the posse introduction riff “Meet the Crew”, are just straight up goofy fun. Andy, adopting rappers’ penchant for spelling words out to fit a rhyme pattern, strings together 69 seconds of rapid-fire alphabet for a lewd roundup of how his life is going. Kiv brags about “Diaper Money”, having enough cashflow to keep his kids in fresh diapers, brags that escalate into “wife pussy”, and Andy’s ownership of a choice grave plot. All three playfully spin-off hashtag rap with the Solange feature “Semicolon”.
I like to think that the group’s output is spiritually influenced by something like Tamra Davis’ Billy Madison-- basically a sea of Tim Herlihy and Adam Sandlers’ inside jokes that you might not get, but a welcoming storm of inanity that you can’t help but enjoy. But what makes the The Wack Album work is the wide range of musical styles the group plants themselves in, from dubstep to “golden era” throwback rap, to auto-tuned R&B to Samberg and Timberlake’s still-potent Color Me Badd riff “3-Way (The Golden Rule)”. The Wack Album is full of smart hat-tips that underscore the fun, allusions to Digital Underground that flex the trio’s rap-loving roots.
The Wack Album’s guests-- a murderer’s row of collaborators featuring the likes of Robyn, Pharrell Williams, Kendrick Lamar, Solange, Hugh Jackman, Lady Gaga, Adam Levine, and more-- all seem to enjoy being there, an aspect that makes the jokes stronger. Though the group works largely without their former ace-in-the whole, Asa Taccone (Jorma’s younger brother, who ably handled the production of the first two Lonely Island albums but has been focusing on his own music lately) The Wack Album's crew of rotating producers deliver a fresh sound palette that punches up the jokes and allows the Lonely Island to do what they do best-- try and make each other laugh. It’s silly, it’s in no shape or form subtle, it’s fun, it works. From “Lazy Sunday” to The Wack Album's closing “Perfect Saturday”, you could argue that the group has hardly missed.
