COMM 150: The Lonely Island, a 'comedy music' band that blends old and new media on SNL and YouTube

Inverviewed by Steve Heisler on the A.V. Club websites about topics as diverse as "their recording process, the definition of a 'real' band, and their sexual prowess," Andy Samberg of The Lonely Island and Saturday Night Live said something in passing about a "real" band, in quotes.

"Do you not feel like a real band?" asked Heisler.

"No," Samberg replied. "We’re a comedy band, I guess. We’re in the comedy section at record stores and on iTunes. It’s not music, it’s comedy. It’s comedy music. [Laughs.] There’s a reason that the word 'comedy' comes first."

Which is what I'd call a niche market.

But the band is successful, both artistically - they're doing what they want to do and doing well - and commercially - they're selling lots of albums and getting lots of page views on the internet.

Thanks to MHovey for posting a link to our class blog.

"Although they were first discovered on SNL, their name shot through the roof through Youtube," she said. "The Lonely Island has become immensely famous because of the internet. Some of my favorite songs by them are 'Like A Boss,' 'I'm on a Boat' and 'Jack Sparrow'."

The Lonely Island's video "Jah Trent" appealed to this old roots reggae fan, but "Jack Sparrow"on YouTube is a much better introduction to what they do and how they do it. It started out as a prerecorded SNL sketch featuring rocker Michael Bolton. Bolton told Clark Collis of Entertainment Weekly's website EW.com:

I just sang it in a studio in Atlanta on a night off. The guys were on through Skype. They’re serious about their comedy but they’re really serious about the details. They were focused on the minutiae that great record producers focus on, not comedy writers. And I love seeing that work ethic. These guys were inspiring.

It was also a boost to his career, which had peaked in the 1990s. According to Collis, Bolton's digital short with Lonely Island "has also turned him into an unlikely Internet phenomenon."



Heisler's May 24 interview in A.V. Club sums up their appeal:

The Lonely Island, practitioners of musical comedy, practically invented the notion of “viral video” with “Lazy Sunday.” And more than five years later, the group has Internet popularity down to a science: The trio’s “Jizz In My Pants” has topped 100,000,000 YouTube views, while the more recent “I Just Had Sex” is close behind. It certainly doesn’t hurt that The Lonely Island’s comic songs, and the accompanying videos, usually debut on Saturday Night Live and feature guests like Justin Timberlake, Nicki Minaj, and Michael Bolton. The group is comprised of Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, and Akiva Schaffer—Samberg is an SNL cast member, and the others write, direct, and occasionally pop up onscreen. What started as three friends fooling around with a camera has turned into a genuine pop-culture phenomenon, and the group’s latest album, Turtleneck & Chain—the follow-up to 2009’s Incredibad—cements The Lonely Island members’ place as humorists who are in the game for the long haul.

Comedy has been around since our ancestors told jokes about hunting wooly mammoth during the Ice Age, and sometimes it seems like SNL has been around for just as long. The same goes for hip hop. But The Lonely Island are using new media to promote their spin on topics as timeless as music, sex and pirate movies. How is technology helping acts like theirs change the face of American culture? [See documented essay assignment at http://mackerelwrapper.blogspot.com/2011/11/comm-150-draft-question-for-documented.html for inspiration].