''Incredibad'' is the debut
studio album
An album is a collection of audio recordings (e.g., music) issued on a medium such as compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl (record), audio tape (like 8-track cartridge, 8-track or Cassette tape, cassette), or digital distribution, dig ...
of the American comedy troupe
The Lonely Island
The Lonely Island is an American comedy trio, formed by Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, and Akiva Schaffer in Berkeley, California, in 2001. They have written for and starred in the American TV program ''Saturday Night Live'' (''SNL'').
The th ...
, released on February 10, 2009, through
Universal Republic Records
Republic Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group (UMG). Based in New York City, it was founded by Avery Lipman and Monte Lipman as an independent label in 1995, and was acquired by UMG in 2000. Republic was initially a ...
.
Composed of writers and childhood best friends
Andy Samberg,
Akiva Schaffer
Akiva Daniel Shebar Schaffer (; born December 1, 1977) is an American writer, producer, director, comedian, actor, and musician. He is a member of the comedy music group The Lonely Island, along with childhood friends Andy Samberg and Jorma Tacc ...
, and
Jorma Taccone, the album consists of
hip hop
Hip-hop or hip hop (originally disco rap) is a popular music genre that emerged in the early 1970s from the African-American community of New York City. The style is characterized by its synthesis of a wide range of musical techniques. Hip- ...
-inspired comedy songs and skits with a satirical slant on traditional hip hop culture.
The album is largely composed of
tracks composed by the troupe for broadcast on
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...
's ''
Saturday Night Live
''Saturday Night Live'' (''SNL'') is an American Late night television in the United States, late-night live television, live sketch comedy variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Michaels and Dick Ebersol that airs on NBC. The ...
''. Samberg was hired as a cast member, with Schaffer and Taccone as writers for the series in late 2005. After the quick production and national success of "
Lazy Sunday", the comedians began writing and recording tracks for their debut album.
Collaborators on the album include
T-Pain
Faheem Rashad Najm (born September 30, 1984), known professionally as T-Pain, is an American singer and rapper. He is known for popularizing creative use of Auto-Tune pitch correction, often used with extreme parameter settings to create electro ...
,
Norah Jones
Norah Jones ( ; born Geethali Shankar; March 30, 1979) is an American singer-songwriter and musician. She has won several awards for her music and, , has sold more than 53 million records worldwide. '' Billboard'' named her the top jazz artist of ...
,
Jack Black
Thomas Jacob "Jack" Black (born August 28, 1969) is an American actor, comedian, and musician. He is known for roles in family and comedy films, in addition to his voice work in animated films. His awards include a Children's and Family Emmy ...
,
E-40
Earl Tywone Stevens (born November 15, 1967), better known by his stage name E-40, is an American rapper. Stevens is a founding member of the rap group The Click (band), The Click and the founder of Sick Wid It Records. He has released 27 stud ...
,
Julian Casablancas
Julian Fernando Casablancas (born August 23, 1978) is an American musician. He is the lead vocalist and primary songwriter of the Rock music, rock band the Strokes, with whom he has released six studio albums since their founding in 1998. Casabl ...
,
Sly & Robbie,
DJ Nu-Mark
Mark Potsic, better known by his stage name DJ Nu-Mark (born June 10, 1971), is an American hip hop producer and DJ. He is a member of Jurassic 5, as well as the owner of Hot Plate Records. He has collaborated with and produced for a variety of a ...
,
J-Zone,
Natalie Portman
Natalie Hershlag{{efn, Some Hebrew sources claim that her birth name was "Neta-Lee Hershleg" ({{langx, he, נטע-לי הרשלג) and later, her first name was Americanized to "Natalie". {{Cite news , last=Shamir , first=Oron , date=August ...
,
Chris Parnell
Thomas Christopher Parnell ( ; born February 5, 1967) is an American actor and comedian. First breaking through as a performer with the Los Angeles comedy troupe The Groundlings, Parnell found wider success during his tenure as a cast member on ...
, and
Justin Timberlake
Justin Randall Timberlake (born January 31, 1981) is an American singer, songwriter, actor, record producer, and dancer. Dubbed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, Prince of Pop", ''Billboard (magazine), Billboard'' honored him as the b ...
.
Background
The comedy group was formed by the three friends while in junior high school in the mid-1990s in
Berkeley, California
Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Anglo-Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland, Cali ...
.
By the turn of the millennium, the three struggling comedy writers graduated from college and created a website, the Lonely Island, to house their self-produced skits and video experiments. Their short movies included everything from cartoons assembled from clips of old
Nintendo
is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto. It develops, publishes, and releases both video games and video game consoles.
The history of Nintendo began when craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi ...
games to satirical rap videos in the styles of their favorite
hip-hop
Hip-hop or hip hop (originally disco rap) is a popular music genre that emerged in the early 1970s from the African-American community of New York City. The style is characterized by its synthesis of a wide range of musical techniques. Hi ...
artists.
"Honestly, almost every single one of the films was done at like 4 in the morning, kind of drunk," recalled Taccone. The Internet allowed the three to develop their comic voices without the pressure of having to deliver professionally polished work.
The videos provided the team with new opportunities: they landed an agent and pilot deals with
Comedy Central
Comedy Central is an American Cable television in the United States, cable television channel, channel owned by Paramount Global through its Paramount Media Networks, network division's Paramount Media Networks#MTV Entertainment Group, MTV Ente ...
and
Fox, after which the group relocated to
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
.
The three soon landed writing jobs for the 2005 MTV Movie Awards.
Hosted by ''
Saturday Night Live
''Saturday Night Live'' (''SNL'') is an American Late night television in the United States, late-night live television, live sketch comedy variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Michaels and Dick Ebersol that airs on NBC. The ...
'' alum
Jimmy Fallon
James Thomas Fallon (born September 19, 1974) is an Americans, American comedian, television host, actor, singer, writer, and producer. Best known for his work in television, Fallon's breakthrough came during his tenure as a cast member on the ...
, Fallon was impressed by the group's material and recommended them to
Lorne Michaels
Lorne Michaels (born Lorne David Lipowitz; November 17, 1944) is a Canadian and American television writer and film producer. He created and produced ''Saturday Night Live'' (1975–1980, 1985–present) and produced the ''Late Night (franchise) ...
, creator and executive producer of ''Saturday Night Live''.
The group spent four days frantically writing in preparation for Samberg's audition as a cast member, which he "nailed". "There were about three days where we were facing the possibility that we might have to split up," said Samberg. "It was the biggest relief ever."
In September 2005, Andy Samberg joined the cast of the show for its
31st season, with Schaffer and Taccone hired as writers for the series.
Samberg became a rookie on the show, toiling long hours to earn a spot in a skit or two.
Along with cast member
Chris Parnell
Thomas Christopher Parnell ( ; born February 5, 1967) is an American actor and comedian. First breaking through as a performer with the Los Angeles comedy troupe The Groundlings, Parnell found wider success during his tenure as a cast member on ...
, the group wrote "
Lazy Sunday" on the evening of December 12, 2005. They recorded the following night in the office The Lonely Island occupied together, using a laptop Taccone bought on
Craigslist
Craigslist (stylized as craigslist) is a privately held American company operating a classified advertisements website with sections devoted to jobs, housing, for sale, items wanted, services, community service, gigs, résumés, and discussi ...
.
Whilst colleagues were rehearsing and rewriting that Saturday's show, the group spent the morning of December 15 shooting their video with a borrowed camera. The video was shot around
Manhattan
Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...
using multiple low-budget techniques.
Schaffer spent the entire next night (into the morning) editing the video and working with technicians to bring it up to broadcast standards. In the moments preceding the show's live performance and broadcast, the team learned from Michaels that "Lazy Sunday" would be shown on that night's show.
The three comedians were very worried about how the video would be received by the studio audience, but were relieved when the episode received a positive response.
By the next morning, the video was a national cultural sensation, with congratulatory phone calls delivered from friends for "breathing fresh air" into the show. The rap began to be played on radio stations and in bars, bringing the group to superstardom overnight.
When "Lazy Sunday" first aired, the group was basically unknown to even the show's most devout fans, but afterward, was given national exposure.
Development and release
Many of the songs on the album debuted on ''
Saturday Night Live
''Saturday Night Live'' (''SNL'') is an American Late night television in the United States, late-night live television, live sketch comedy variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Michaels and Dick Ebersol that airs on NBC. The ...
'' as
SNL Digital Shorts. The tracks that originally premiered as digital shorts on the show were licensed to Universal Republic from NBC and Broadway Video, although Universal Music retains
phonographic copyright of these works.
[Cohen, Jonathan (2009-01-17), "WORLDWIDE 'PANTS.'" ''Billboard''. 121 (2):35] The music videos for songs "
Lazy Sunday", "
Like a Boss", "
Jizz in My Pants
"Jizz in My Pants" is a ''SNL'' Digital Short which aired on ''Saturday Night Live'' on December 6, 2008, and YouTube on the same day. It serves as the music video for the first single from the Lonely Island's debut album, '' Incredibad''. The ...
", "
I'm on a Boat", "We Like Sportz", "Boombox", and "
Dick in a Box" are all available for viewing in HD on
YouTube
YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...
. The album is also available on vinyl. iTunes and YouTube are the primary distributors of the album's accompanying music videos.
[
Prior to the album's release, "Jizz in My Pants" sold 76,000 downloads in its first two weeks of availability.][
The song "Iran So Far", featuring ]Adam Levine
Adam Noah Levine ( ; born March 18, 1979) is an American musician who is the lead singer, rhythm guitarist and sole continuous member of the pop rock band Maroon 5.
Levine began his musical career in 1994 with the band Kara's Flowers, for ...
, was supposed to be the 18th track of the album, but the rights could not be secured because of the Aphex Twin
Richard David James (born 18 August 1971), known professionally as Aphex Twin, is a British musician, composer and DJ active in electronic music since 1988. His idiosyncratic work has drawn on many styles, including techno, ambient music, ambi ...
sample used in the track. About this, Taccone said,
Samberg added, "For the record, Aphex Twin was super cool about the whole thing. It was the label Warp Records">/nowiki>Warp Records">Warp_Records.html" ;"title="/nowiki>Warp Records">/nowiki>Warp Records/nowiki>." The Lonely Island once considered doing some live appearances to promote the album but scheduling around ''Saturday Night Live
''Saturday Night Live'' (''SNL'') is an American Late night television in the United States, late-night live television, live sketch comedy variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Michaels and Dick Ebersol that airs on NBC. The ...
'' was a challenge because it took priority.[
]
Critical reception
''The New York Times'' gave the album a positive review, including the album on its Critics Choice list of the week, only taking issue with the group's no-fi pre-''Saturday Night Live'' material. ''Rolling Stone'' gave the album three out of five stars, calling it "the new frontier of ' White and Nerdy'."[Maerz, Melissa (2009-02-19), "Incredibad." ''Rolling Stone''. (1072):66] All Music gave the album four out of five stars, calling it a "fully committed comedy album...that's just as hip, inventive, and inappropriate as he group'sdigital shorts." ''Billboard'' magazine said the album shows the band's "deft handle on musical parody." ''The New York Observer'' remarked that the album "manages to avoid most of the pratfalls inherent within the genre," and called the music "wildly catchy," although it did acknowledge that "most of it has been heard before" making it less desirable to buy. Hip Hop DX said that "as a comedic display, ''Incredibad'' comes pretty close to impeccable; as a proper album it's less rewarding," and concluded by saying, "It's nice that someone finally cares enough about ip hopmusic to mock it properly."
Music videos
Track listing
Parody sources
* "Bing Bong Bros." is a parody of "Wait (The Whisper Song)
"Wait (The Whisper Song)" is a song by American crunk duo Ying Yang Twins, It was released on March 1, 2005, as the lead single from their fourth studio album, '' U.S.A. (United State of Atlanta)'' (2005). The song consists of a minimal bass pul ...
" by the Ying Yang Twins
The Ying Yang Twins are an American hip hop duo consisting of Kaine (born Eric Jackson on December 16, 1978) and D-Roc (born Deongelo Holmes on February 23, 1979). Despite the name, the duo are not twins, brothers or related in any way.
They d ...
.
* "Natalie's Rap" is a parody of Eazy-E
Eric Lynn Wright (September 7, 1964 – March 26, 1995), known professionally as Eazy-E, was an American rapper who propelled West Coast rap and gangsta rap by leading the group N.W.A and its label, Ruthless Records. Eazy-E is often re ...
's song, "No More ?'s", from his album, ''Eazy-Duz-It
''Eazy-Duz-It'' is the debut studio album by American rapper Eazy-E. It was released on November 22, 1988, by Ruthless Records and Priority Records. The album charted on two different charts and went 2× Platinum in the United States despite ve ...
''.
* "Like a Boss" is a parody of Slim Thug
Stayve Jerome Thomas (born September 8, 1979), better known by his stage name Slim Thug, is an American rapper. He gained mainstream attention for his guest performance alongside Paul Wall on Mike Jones' 2004 single "Still Tippin'". The followi ...
's song, "Like a Boss", from his album, '' Already Platinum''.
Chart position
The album debuted on the ''Billboard'' 200 album chart at 13, with first week sales of 48,000.
It was the eighth-best-selling rap album of 2009 and sold 246,000 copies.
Weekly charts
Year-end
Certifications
References
External links
*
Incredibad
' at Discogs
Discogs ( ; short for " discographies") is a database of information about audio recordings, including commercial releases, promotional releases, and bootleg or off-label releases. Database contents are user-generated, and described in ''T ...
*
{{Authority control
2009 debut albums
Universal Republic Records albums
The Lonely Island albums
2000s comedy albums
Albums produced by Wyshmaster