Album Review: The Lonely Island – Turtleneck & Chain
On the surface, it seems a little silly to give a real review to a fake rap album. But The Lonely Island is not your average musical comedy group. They nab huge guest spots and write soaring hooks around songs that are good enough to make you have to decide between singing along and cracking up. Plus, with a Grammy nomination under their belts, they know how important they are to the music world (“We invented this fake rap shit/the world needs us!”) Who are we to argue with them? The boys are back, and that’s never a bad thing.
Turtleneck & Chain starts out strong – the boys bring the laughs fast and furious for the first four songs. Album opener “We’re Back” is a perfect send-up of any big name rap album intro – complete with Jorma Taccone as the hype man – that juxtaposes the hard rap feel with the very un-rap lyrical content about the their own impotence. Like many of their songs, the next track “Mama” is a one-note joke – but like many others, it’s so funny that it doesn’t matter.
The boys get to Turtleneck & Chain’s major highlight fast, as the Akon-featuring “I Just Had Sex” comes in just under four minutes into the album. In terms of viral internet impact, “I Just Had Sex” is up there with “Dick in a Box” and “Jizz in My Pants” as one of their mega hits. With over 90 million (and counting) YouTube views, it’s unquestionably the most popular song on the album – only the “Dick in a Box” sequel “Motherlover” even comes somewhat close. Both of these hits work well on the album without their visual counterparts. The sheer joy of “Sex” especially oozes off the record, and it’s always great to hear Justin Timberlake singing again in any capacity (seriously, JT, come back to music), even if it’s all about him loving Andy Samberg’s mother (“Imma be the syrup, she can be my waffle”).
The guest list on this record is impressive – with everyone from Michael Bolton to Nicki Minaj – but some of them work much better than others. Michael Bolton in particular gets put to good use in “Jack Sparrow” – the boys just want to make a sexy club jam, but Bolton is distracted by the Pirates of the Caribbean marathon he just watched and ends up singing about Jack Sparrow instead, much to the chagrin of Samberg and the gang. It’s a great gag that gets better when put to video, but it still plays almost as well in simple audio. On the other hand, Beck apparently showed up on “Attracted to Us”, but it’s easy to miss if you aren’t looking for it, as he’s mostly relegated to being a backup singer. Others still are just there – Snoop Dogg’s guest verse seems like it could have shown up on any Snoop-featuring track. Yes, he’s singing about fluffy turtlenecks and sippin’ on light beer, but seeing as how he’s become a big parody of himself these days, it doesn’t seem too far off anyways.
Just like Incredibad, the non-digital short songs are a mixed bag. Even the most uneven ones have their moments, but only a couple really live up to their SNL-appearing counterparts. The title track is just a wonderfully silly rap song, while “No Homo” is a fantastic parody of the dumb trend of rappers tossing around “no homo” to defend themselves against sounding gay. Predictably, the song ends up with at least one of the dudes coming out of the closet (but, “no homo”!) and then just as the album began, there’s a great take on any-given-album’s outro. The dudes wear some of their influences on their sleeves this time around, as “Rocky” is just a more outrageous (and gory) take on DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince’s “I Think I Can Beat Mike Tyson”, while “Trouble on Dookie Island” is a pitch-perfect Ghostface Killah parody. If it weren’t so ridiculous (and wasn’t about poop), it wouldn’t sound too out of place on FishScale – the dudes never stop rapping for a hook, and it’s got a Scarface audio clip in there for good measure.
Michael Bolton talks about his ‘Jack Sparrow’ ‘SNL’ digital short, his new CD, and sticking his face in a mountain of (fake) cocaine
Is Michael Bolton now the coolest rock star on the planet thanks to the crooner’s game turn in this weekend’s Saturday Night Live digital short, “Jack Sparrow”?
Maybe not, but Bolton’s performance as a movie-obsessed version of himself who hilariously ruins the Lonely Island crew’s hip-hop track by singing about Pirates of the Caribbean, Forrest Gump, Erin Brockovich, and Scarface has definitely cranked up his cool quotient.
The short has also turned him into an unlikely Internet phenomenon. After the jump, Bolton talks about his collaboration with Lonely Island-ers Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer, his new CD of duets, and why he won’t be dressing in drag again any time soon.
Entertainment Weekly: How did the digital short come about?
Michael Bolton: The Lonely Island guys reached out to my management and said they wanted to do this. I said, “I love those guys. But what are they thinking?” I was automatically scanning through my memory banks of the most wicked language and visuals. You want to work with guys like this. But at the same time I get invitations to perform at the Vatican! [Laughs] It could be potentially uncomfortable. And in the first few approaches some of the language was just so intense and off-color.
Could you give an example of that?
I can’t! [Laughs] Not right now. If you’ve seen the Natalie Portman sketch you know their brand is shock-funny, in that order. They love to get you where you just can’t believe what you’re looking at and then hit you with the funny. I’ve been all about humor and all about laughing since I was a kid. That’s just who I am. I’ve been kicked out of every class. Andy and I were talking about that. Neither one of us had our Bar Mitzvah because we couldn’t take Hebrew school seriously.
You could have a joint one now!
Now, there’s a funny video right there. That’s something I would need to talk to Andy about. But they were sending me lyrics and I was reading them and I was thinking, “This is funny.” Then I’d get to another line that I really wish I could share with you right now, but I just can’t. I would say, “Nope, I don’ t think I could be intoxicated enough to read this line.” It kept transforming. And they really wanted me to do it. Because they could have just said at any point, “Nah, you’re going to take the funny out of it, you’re going to take the shock value out of it.” Finally, I said “This is great. But can we still take a look at some of this language, because I’m still not comfortable. Scarface is Scarface. He can say pretty much anything. As my own character, I just have a rough time wrapping my head around it.”
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