Gay panic isn’t funny, even if you’re using it to lambaste a homophobe like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad! And, again, the problem isn’t just that it’s a touchy subject, it’s also just hack. “ Iran So Far ,” SNL Digital Short (2007) At the risk of sounding too woke, I have to say, as a queer man, this is the rare TLI track about queer male sexuality that I find actively offensive. Best Lyric: “Each jerk we kill, our hearts grow colder / I could shoot all day, doesn’t hurt my shoulder.”ġ08. Even if you don’t find that offensive, it’s hard to argue that it’s anything more than a cheap gag. The bits are fun when they follow the Guys as they navigate their quotidian existences, but in this track, the humor is derived from the fact that we’re listening to two stereotypically “white” characters adopting the more violent aspects of racist stereotypes of people of color. “ We’ll Kill U ,” online video (2011) The ongoing Guy Number One / Guy Number Two song cycle reaches its nadir with this sucker. “ Spell It Out ,” The Wack Album (2013) The flutes and whistles of the beat can’t make up for the fact that this isn’t a song so much as it is a word puzzle with an idiotically vulgar secret message. Best Lyric: “I miss you, my old friend / You took a little doo-doo in my hand.”ġ10. Once he starts weeping, I always think to myself, I’m not Joanna Newsom, I am under no obligation to listen to Andy Samberg cry. It’s essentially two and a half minutes of listening to Andy’s blaring, autotuned voice with no backing track other than a lone synth near the end.
One could set up a similar test of will with “Maximus,” Popstar’s ode to a perished turtle. In order to win it, you had to listen to the entirety of Suicide’s infamously horrifying “Frankie Teardrop” alone while wearing headphones and not lose your mind. “ Maximus ,” Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016) Podcaster Tom Scharpling used to have this thing called the Frankie Teardrop Challenge. Best/Only Lyric: “Earth, wind, and birds / They fill my heart up with darkness, so cold.”ġ11. The deft production makes for a beat of convincing mimicry, but despite the title, this doesn’t really add up to a song. “ Owen’s Song ,” Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016) I’ll say this: I admire TLI for even bothering to release this plot-advancing 98-second snippet of EDM stupidity from the Popstar film as a track. We have also excluded their occasional skits (although, if we were to rank those, “Normal Guy” would, of course, be number one).ġ12. In honor of the group’s first live tour, we have assembled a definitive ranking of their massive catalog, from their earliest lo-fi goof-offs to their expertly assembled recent work.Īlthough many of these songs have accompanying visuals in the form of music videos, SNL Digital Shorts, and even filmed appearances in their underrated 2016 film Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping and the recent visual album The Unauthorized Bash Brothers Experience, we have chosen to evaluate each one on its merits as a standalone musical entity. The trio are an enormously talented outfit with gifts for composition in a dizzying array of genres, but their best work goes beyond mere satire and into expressions of awe at the world and its wonders. But it was only with their ascent to the hallowed halls of Saturday Night Live as the Lonely Island (hereafter styled as TLI) that they started affecting the course of American comedy - and, dare we say, music. To that claim, the Lonely Island say: bullshit.Īndy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, and Akiva Schaffer have been recording laugh-inducing ditties since they were youngsters, first under the collective name Incredibad. You can’t really feel something about a song that makes you giggle, can you? Demento used to play on his show are not generally held in high esteem by critics or musicologists. We assume a comedic song is a novelty song, a bit of doggerel to be cast to the side of the street when its been listened to and guffawed at once or twice. Unfortunately, we all too often bifurcate quality and humor. For as long as humans have been able to compose music, they’ve been able to use it to make other humans laugh.
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