''Incredibad'' is the debut
studio album
An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...
of the American comedy troupe
The Lonely Island
The Lonely Island is an American comedy trio, formed by Akiva Schaffer, Andy Samberg, and Jorma Taccone in Berkeley, California, in 2001. They have written for and starred in the American TV program ''Saturday Night Live'' (''SNL'').
The three ...
, released on February 10, 2009, through
Universal Republic Records
Republic Records is a New York City–based American record label owned by Universal Music Group (UMG). 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 an i ...
.
Composed of writers and childhood best friends
Andy Samberg
Andy Samberg (born David A. J. Samberg; August 18, 1978) is an American actor, comedian, musician, producer and screenwriter. He is a member of the comedy music group The Lonely Island and was a cast member on ''Saturday Night Live'' from 2005 ...
,
Akiva Schaffer
Akiva D. Schaffer (; born December 1, 1977) is an American film director, comedian, actor, and writer. He is a member of the comedy group The Lonely Island along with Andy Samberg and Jorma Taccone. He began his career with The Lonely Island maki ...
, and
Jorma Taccone
Jorma Christopher Taccone (; born March 19, 1977) is an American comedian, director, actor, and writer. He is one-third of the sketch comedy troupe The Lonely Island, with childhood friends Andy Samberg and Akiva Schaffer. In 2010, Taccone co-wro ...
, the album consists of
hip hop-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 Television in the United States, American English-language Commercial broadcasting, commercial television network, broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Enterta ...
's ''
Saturday Night Live
''Saturday Night Live'' (often abbreviated to ''SNL'') is an American late-night live television sketch comedy and variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Dick Ebersol that airs on NBC and Peacock. Michaels currently serves a ...
''. 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,
Norah Jones
Norah Jones (born Geethali Norah Jones Shankar; March 30, 1979) is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. She has won several awards for her music and as of 2012, has sold more than 50 million records worldwide. ''Billboard'' named her the ...
,
Jack Black
Thomas Jacob Black (born August 28, 1969) is an American actor, comedian, and musician. He is known for his acting roles in the films '' High Fidelity'' (2000), ''Shallow Hal'' (2001), ''Orange County'' (2002), '' School of Rock'' (2003), ''E ...
,
E-40
Earl Tywone Stevens Sr. (born November 15, 1967), better known by his stage name E-40, is an American rapper. He is a founding member of the rap group The Click, and the founder of Sick Wid It Records. He has released 26 studio albums to date, a ...
,
Julian Casablancas
Julian Fernando Casablancas (born August 23, 1978) is an American singer, musician and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist and primary songwriter of Rock music, rock band The Strokes, with whom he has released six studio albums since the ...
,
Sly & Robbie
Sly and Robbie were a prolific Jamaican rhythm section and production duo, associated primarily with the reggae and dub genres. Drummer Sly Dunbar and bassist Robbie Shakespeare teamed up in the mid-1970s after establishing themselves separat ...
,
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 ar ...
,
J-Zone
Jay Mumford (born February 26, 1977), better known by his stage name J-Zone, is an American record producer, drummer, multi-instrumentalist, rapper, and writer from New York City.
Career
Known for his quirky lyrics and trash talk style of rappi ...
,
Natalie Portman
Natalie Portman (born Natalie Hershlag, he, נטע-לי הרשלג, ) is an Israeli-born American actress. She has had a prolific film career since her teenage years and has starred in various blockbusters and independent films, receiving mu ...
,
Chris Parnell
Thomas Christopher Parnell (; born February 5, 1967) is an American actor and comedian. He was a cast member on ''Saturday Night Live'' from 1998 to 2006 and played the role of Dr. Leo Spaceman on ''30 Rock''. In animation, he voices Cyril Figgis ...
, and
Justin Timberlake
Justin Randall Timberlake (born January 31, 1981) is an American singer, songwriter, and actor. He is one of the world's best-selling music artists, with sales of over 88 million records. Timberlake is the recipient of numerous awards and ac ...
.
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 Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emer ...
.
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, Japan. It develops video games and video game consoles.
Nintendo was founded in 1889 as by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produce ...
games to satirical rap videos in the styles of their favorite
hip-hop 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 basic cable channel owned by Paramount Global through its network division's MTV Entertainment Group unit, based in Manhattan. The channel is geared towards young adults aged 18–34 and carries comedy programming ...
and
Fox
Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush'').
Twelve sp ...
, after which the group relocated to
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
.
The three soon landed writing jobs for the 2005 MTV Movie Awards.
Hosted by ''
Saturday Night Live
''Saturday Night Live'' (often abbreviated to ''SNL'') is an American late-night live television sketch comedy and variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Dick Ebersol that airs on NBC and Peacock. Michaels currently serves a ...
'' alum
Jimmy Fallon
James Thomas Fallon (born September 19, 1974) is an American comedian, television host, actor, and writer. He is known for his work in television as a cast member on ''Saturday Night Live'' and as the host of the late-night talk show ''The Ton ...
, 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-American producer, screenwriter, and comedian. He is best known for creating and producing ''Saturday Night Live'' (1975–1980, 1985–present) and producing the '' La ...
, 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. He was a cast member on ''Saturday Night Live'' from 1998 to 2006 and played the role of Dr. Leo Spaceman on ''30 Rock''. In animation, he voices Cyril Figgis ...
, 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 an American classified advertisements website with sections devoted to jobs, housing, for sale, items wanted, services, community service, Gig worker, gigs, résumés, and discussion forums.
Craig Newmark ...
.
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 (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
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'' (often abbreviated to ''SNL'') is an American late-night live television sketch comedy and variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Dick Ebersol that airs on NBC and Peacock. Michaels currently serves a ...
'' as
SNL Digital Shorts
An ''SNL'' Digital Short is one in a series of comedic and often musical video shorts created for NBC's ''Saturday Night Live''. The origin of the Digital Short brand is credited to staff writer Adam McKay, who created content for the show in c ...
. 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 video ...
", "
I'm on a Boat
"I'm on a Boat" is a single from The Lonely Island's debut album ''Incredibad''. It was also featured as a ''Saturday Night Live'' Digital Short. The song features R&B singer T-Pain. The song, produced by Wyshmaster, is a parody of many rap ...
", "We Like Sportz", "Boombox", and "
Dick in a Box
"Dick in a Box" is a song by the American comedy group The Lonely Island featuring American singer Justin Timberlake. The artists wrote the song with Katreese Barnes and Asa Taccone, who both produced it with Jorma Taccone. ''Saturday Night Liv ...
" are all available for viewing in HD on
YouTube
YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...
. 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 singer and songwriter. He serves as the lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of the pop rock band Maroon 5. Levine began his musical career in 1994 with the band Kara's Flowers, of which ...
, 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), best known as Aphex Twin, is an Irish-born British musician, composer and DJ. He is known for his idiosyncratic work in electronic music, electronic styles such as techno, ambient music, ambient, and jun ...
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'' (often abbreviated to ''SNL'') is an American late-night live television sketch comedy and variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Dick Ebersol that airs on NBC and Peacock. Michaels currently serves a ...
'' 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's
He or HE may refer to:
Language
* He (pronoun), an English pronoun
* He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ
* He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets
* He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...
digital 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 2005 snap song released by Atlanta crunk rap duo Ying Yang Twins off their album ''U.S.A. (United State of Atlanta)''. The song consists of a minimal bass pulse, a few finger-snaps, and whispered, sexually explicit ...
" 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/D'Angelo Holmes on February 13, 1979). They are not twin brothers. They did the windows to the walls song. The ...
.
* "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. He is often referred t ...
'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 23, 1988, by Ruthless Records and Priority Records. The album charted on two different charts and went 2× Platinum in the United States despite ver ...
''.
* "Like a Boss" is a parody of Slim Thug
Stayve Jerome Thomas (born September 8, 1980), better known by his stage name Slim Thug, is an American rapper. He initially gained mainstream attention for his contribution to the hit single by rapper Mike Jones, "Still Tippin'". In July 2005, h ...
's song, "Like a Boss", from his album, ''Already Platinum
''Already Platinum'' is the debut album by American rapper Slim Thug. The album was released on July 12, 2005 on Pharrell and Chad Hugo's Star Trak label. The original release date was slated for February 2005, but heavy bootlegging and numerous ...
''.
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. While the site was originally created with a goal of becoming the la ...
*
{{Authority control
2009 debut albums
Universal Republic Records albums
The Lonely Island albums
2000s comedy albums