The Lonely Island, THE WACK ALBUM (deluxe version)

Time for some more comedy rap!  The Lonely Island (Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, and Jorma Taccone) are back with The Wack Album, their third album of humor mixed in with "hardcore" rap stylings.  The trio haven't lost their touch, offering an album that's more consistent than their last releases.

On The Wack Album the comic trio sing about everything from punctuation ("Semicolon") to a fashion statement or malfunction ("You've Got the Look") to offering compliments to each other ("Compliments") to even a version of maturity ("Diaper Money").  There are plenty of guest singers here -- including Lady Gaga, Billie Joe Armstrong, T-Pain, and Justin Timberlake -- but this remains the comics' focus.

And The Wack Album works very well.  Many of the jokes are unexpected, whether adding a new twist to teen partying in "Spring Break Anthem" or turning the youthful slogan "You only live once" into a paranoid rant in "YOLO."  On "Spell It Out" Samberg delivers his lyrics one letter at a time, while "Hugs" and "I Don't Give a Honk" replace profanity with G-rated terms very well.  Best of all, there aren't the "filler" songs on past albums that may have seemed like a good idea in theory but were just weird without being funny.  The Wack Album delivers its laughs from start to finish.

(The deluxe version also comes with a DVD with several music videos, plus their 100th Saturday Night Live digital short.  These are all terrific.)

Overall grade: A-
Reviewed by James Lynch