I doubt the guys behind "Somebody Gonna Get Pregnant" and "Art School Girls (Remix)" would take too kindly to being intellectualized, but listening to Ninjasonik's debut, I'm brought face-to-face with a question that goes to the core of music criticism: Can an album truly be bad even if it achieves exactly what it intended to do? Now, since it's a term that's somehow both loaded and meaningless, "hipster rap" has been applied with various degrees of accuracy to everyone from the Cool Kids to Clipse. But Ninjasonik are what people are thinking of when they use that term in a vacuum (with "hipster" being code for "asshole"), and Art School Girls is undoubtedly attempting to be its definitive document, presumably because what the game's been missing in 2010 is hip-hop's answer to A.R.E. Weapons, and by comparison, Uffie's too in hock to the Four Elements to get the job done.
Another thought: Is it possible to loathe the idea of something like this catching on even if you have no idea who it could possibly be meant for? In this case, yes-- judging by its lyrics, beats, production and attitude, if Art School Girls showed less concern for being enjoyed by someone other than the people who made it, it would be an anti-folk album. It's best taking it step by step. "Dada" piles on migraine-inducing kick drums over three minutes of chants like "break that ass on the floor!" but, like a strip club on a Thursday afternoon, it's too depressing to possibly be erotic. "Toe Wop" is baked in the fluorescents of Vice (Magazine or City), but ends up sounding like Dâm-Funk if he were ironic. The title track is exponentially more witless than a song about the same topic written by Scott fucking Weiland in 1996. "Berst'a'ball (Skit)" is two minutes of a drunk guy bitching about picture parties and is every bit [#script:http://pitchfork.com/media/backend/js/tiny_mce/themes/advanced/langs/en.js]|||||| as entertaining as that sounds. But then somehow things manage to take a turn for the worse on... "Picture Party", which at least tries to fit a proper song into its torturous five and a half minutes before dedicating its second half to more drunk guys bitching about picture parties. I'm willing to take this as a next-level example of "write what you know."
Now, we're in a year where Eminem and Drake are the two top-selling rap acts, so being solipsistic or even unlikeable isn't a hurdle to successfully communicating with an audience. But Ninjasonik's musical values are so null and void that in a cruel irony, you can't imagine Art School Girls playing anywhere but the fashion-conscious Brooklyn get togethers they spend the majority of their time complaining about. Pretty much the only thing saving this from total failure is the title of "Drink n' My Ska Step", and even that gets less funny every time you hear it. It serves as an unintentional metaphor for the compositional method of Girls' Side B, which mostly consists of a joke usually included in the title ("Somebody Gonna Get Pregnant", "Holla Front") that's then repeated ad nauseum for two or three minutes over entry-level electro. It almost makes you nostalgic for the awfulness of the first half, which at least made you feel something.
It's just one of those situations where, "oh, come on-- they're just fucking around" doesn't work as a copout, not when the heart of this album pumps to the beat of their contempt for others: Although Ninjasonik have no real investment in what you might consider typical street-rap, they still manage to include the kind of casual misogyny, homophobia, and race-baiting you can rely on from your garden variety download from Datpiff.com. So, the question again: Can an album truly be bad even if it achieves exactly what it intended to do? If your intent is to make shit music, I don't even see how it's a question at all.
