(Warning: A LOT of vulgarity on this one. As in, if you are 18 years of age or under, don’t read this.)
If I say Arin Hanson or Dan Avidan right now, you might not know who
I’m talking about. If I say Egoraptor or Danny Sexbang, however, chance are you know who they are: The current Game Grumps. They've become quite known for Let's Plays, but also for various side-projects. Dan's main band, Ninja Sex Party, where he makes music with a friend who goes by the moniker Ninja Brian, has gained quite a lot
of recognition. You might also know these three guys as a video game-themed
band, quite popular on YouTube thanks to the numerous animated videoclips made
out of their songs: StarBomb. As usual, it’s April 1st, and I tend
to enjoy doing special things around this time of the year, so I decided to
check out their full first album… titled Starbomb.
The whole thing clocks in at a little over 27 minutes,
with 13 tracks. Do the math. The longest track on this album is 2 minutes 50 seconds.
If you like long jams (like I do), you can skip this one.
However, if you like video games, should you check it out? That’s what I’ll be
judging today, as I go through the album, track by track.
We open with Track 1, “Intro”. How creative. It’s just Egoraptor presenting the new band, with Danny joining in partway
through with Ninja Brian. He also goes on to say that the band uses the various video
game universes for parody and comedy, and goes on a long-winded explanation of
fair use. Probably to protect their asses from the lawsuit-happy Nintendo,
especially Nintendo of Japan who clearly has no idea how to deal with American
fair use laws and will happily steal the monetization of any video that
contains footage of Nintendo games because they can’t get in with the times
while every other video game company out there has understood that it’s like
free publicity- But I digress.
Give me a moment, I must check the track listing for this on the Apple Store. What’s the red E next to every single song title? …Oh.
It stands for Explicit.
Goodie.
The first actual song is “I Choose You To Die”. It
starts with Egoraptor and Ninja Sex Party namedropping themselves, because, you
know, the Intro had already done that already but we needed a reminder one
minute later. So, this song is about the Pokémon series, the anime in
particular. It’s about Ash, somehow at the height of his glory – which, if you
know the anime, you know Ash NEVER reaches any glory whatsoever. Having nothing
else left to do, he becomes abusive towards his Pokémon and gets sent to jail. First
actual track of the album, and we’re already into animal abuse! Goodie! Oh, and
these events are all told with multiple Pokémon puns of course, because that’s
never been seen before… In fact, many other songs out there did it better. Even unprofessional songs!
It ends with Ash getting out of jail, only for his
Pikachu to show up and… shoot him in the genitals… Well, in the sack, as the
lyrics say. Oh, God. No… Just no… Well, that sets the tone for the rest of the
album, doesn’t it? The song ends with an eardrum-piercing scream done by
Egoraptor. It’s annoying as Heck. Urgh, this review may have been a bad idea.
Thanks, StarBomb, for that mental image. I’ll admit,
the rhythm is catchy and the music is great, but these lyrics… these lyrics…
Such gratuitous swearing and all of those easy jokes… It feels like the most
immature thing ever. And that’s a shame, too, because Egoraptor is great at
making voices, and he and Danny Sexbang are great singers. In fact, I can
recommend many great songs from Ninja Sex Party, including a stellar cover of
A-Ha’s Take On Me. But here, it’s like they just wanted to make jokes; I can
usually respect that, but did every single one of these songs have to go the
vulgarity route?
Can I just listen to this on a loop for 28 minutes
instead?
No? Fine, moving on to “It’s Dangerous To Go
Alone”. We get Link singing as he’s on another quest to save Zelda. He meets
the old man in the cave, who offers the green-clad hero a weapon to help on his
quest. Surprise! It’s his genitals painted grey, and he wants Link to fondle
them. Ew. Ew. Ew. No. Eeeew… No. Hell no, ewwww.
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwww.
After fleeing from the cave, Link uses his ocarina to
travel and continue his quest, except he ends up in GTA’s Liberty City, where
he meets the old man again, who makes the same offer. Once again, the music is
excellent, but I feel like the jokes are pushing into very creepy territory.
Also, old man, if you reached Liberty City, I can assure you, someone in that
crime-riddled city will be more than happy to fulfill your request. And that
person will not be Link. Then they wind up in Resident Evil’s Raccoon City.
Different place, same request. Link, just kill the old man already.
I was promised a destiny of grand adventure and heroics! An old man's dick was never in the fine print! |
Song 5 is “Mega Marital Problems”- Oh. Oh no. Hell no.
This is another sex song again, except with Mega Man this time, isn’t it? …Yep.
So… Mega Man and his wife, Miss Mega Man (not making that up), are seeing
marriage counselor Doctor Wily (not making that up). Their marriage is failing
because Mega Man is having issues pleasuring his wife- No. Just no.
Nnnnnnnnnope. Screw this, I’m out.
Oh wait, this is my blog, I can’t go anywhere. Doctor Wily (who claims he is totally, like, not evil anymore, he swears) says
Mega Man must beat more Robot Masters and get their powers, to use them on his
wife during their horizontal tango. And that’s the whole joke. I’m pretty sure
they think it’s even funnier because they’re talking about robots having sex,
but… I’m sorry, I don’t like it. The stupid, it’s overwhelming.
Then we have “Crasher-Vania”, a Monster Mash spoof
involving Dracula of Castlevania having a party, which Simon Belmont crashes in
his quest to kill all of the nasty monsters. Okay, finally a set-up that isn’t
about sex, I can get behind that. Though it’s the second time on this 27-minute
album that they rhyme “castle” with “hassle”, the first time being in “Luigi’s
Ballad”. Despite Dracula relocating the party, Simon comes in again and kills
everyone except Drac, only to admit he did that because he’s never invited. I
mean, this song also has a pretty neat beat, as is the case for all other songs
on here – but at least it tries to do something else than endless dick jokes.
Thank GOD for that.
13 tracks, 7 done… What? I’m only halfway through?
*sigh* Okay. Track 8 is “The Book of Nook”. It highlights the very creepy
undertone of Animal Crossing where you’re forced to work forever to repay your
debts to Tom Nook, in what is eerily close to slavery – AKA, a joke that nobody
else has ever done about Animal Crossing, I swear, this is brand-new, I never
saw that before. Y'know, brand new. It's been done just twelve hundred times, it's still fresh. Wow, my sarcasm is reaching unprecedented heights today. Oh,
and more gratuitous swearing all over the place. Because that totally doesn’t
make you sound like an immature child who discovered curse words for the first
time and is now dropping them at every chance he gets, am I right?
Also wow, I am so very much of a prude today, it’s
incredible. I mean, usually I’m not that bad. Maybe it’s because it’s April 1st,
I don’t know. It’s a stark contrast from last year, where I tried to be as much
of a pervert as possible while reviewing a perverted game… Meh, whatever, let’s
get this over with. What’s the worst that can happen?
The next track is “Sonic’s Best Pal”. Oh, thanks,
finally something that sounds promising. Maybe we’ll get something funny that
isn’t brutally vulgar… Oh. It’s about Tails pawning away the Chaos Emeralds to
buy PCP and drug himself to death. And he suddenly goes metalhead, claiming he
wants to… kill someone. Please. Please, no. I can’t… I can’t take this anymore.
This entire album is painful. I… I can’t endure this any longer. And of course
Tails uses vulgarity, because as I mentioned there is not a single song on this
album without vulgarity. Oh, and Tails ends up killing Eggman with bullets to
the head, shortly after sniffing coke off a hooker. Then he kills Sonic, and
then the narrator. I wish I was making that up. For Christ’s sake, still 4
songs left… I want to cry…
No. No. Hell no. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. I… I
don’t want to continue this. Please… I have to stop. I can’t stand this
anymore. No. No. No. No. No. No. Samus killed puppies. This is going too far…
But I need to finish this…
The next song is titled “Kirby’s adventures in”- NO.
HELL NO. FUCK NO. NO. THE SONG IS CALLED “KIRBY’S ADVENTURES IN REAMLAND”. HA
HA, THE D IS MISSING, IT MAKES "REAM", HA HA ISN’T THAT THE FUNNIEST. I AM ROLLING ON THE FLOOR
LAUGHING RIGHT NOW, AND NO, IT IS NOT BECAUSE I AM TRYING TO GIVE MYSELF A
CONCUSSION BY HITTING REPEATEDLY THE BACK OF MY HEAD ON THE SOLID WOODEN FLOOR
OF MY BEDROOM SO THAT I CAN STOP LISTENING TO THIS FUCKING ALBUM. ACTUALLY THAT
IS TOTALLY THE REASON, BUT SO THAT YOU DON’T WORRY ABOUT MY HEALTH, I AM
PRETENDING TO BE JUST LAUGHING DOWN THERE, PLEASE IGNORE THE MANY THUD SOUNDS YOU
HEAR. OH GOD I THINK MY HEAD IS BLEEDING. YES, IT IS BLEEDING, OH NO. FUCK THIS ALBUM.
And then, of course, the song is once again about
dicks. Urgh… please… Please, I beg you… Stop. Stop this here… I don’t want to
finish reviewing this… I don’t want another childhood series I cherish to be
tainted by these two imbeciles who can sing about nothing else but genitalia…
Because you knew that was coming… Of course they had to make a joke about each
of them having thirty-inch dicks… Of course they had to… and… and… then they
say they’ll fuck Kirby with those…
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH
KILL ME. KILL ME ALREADY.
...And then, of course, it gets worse. No, I am not
saying how it gets worse. I’ve had it up to here with this shitty fucking
album. Fuck this album. Or rather, don’t, because I am certain that Egoraptor
and Danny Sexbang would take it as praise if someone somehow fucked the CD
these disgusting songs are on. Bash it with a crowbar. Take a jackhammer to it.
Destroy this stupid album and all the unnecessary vulgarity and all of the
poor, childhood-destroying sex jokes on it.
Then it’s Track 13, “Outro”, which starts with
Egoraptor rapping about having to go pee. Oh, geez, I was afraid for a moment
that this album would end on a classy note. Anyway, this short 40-second track
is mostly a message from the singers, who announce that they’ll start work on…
a second StarBomb album…
I am NEVER going through that second album. NEVER.
These 27 minutes had some of the most painful songs I ever had to sit through.
This album is horrible. I don’t recommend it to anyone. I find it particularly
sad because, as I mentioned, I know Arin and Danny have talent, but it’s wasted
on easy humor. The music is usually fine, but the texts make me want to… to… I
don’t know, but one thing is certain, I am never listening to this whole thing
ever again.
There I thought it would be a funny little April 1st
“episode”, making jokes about pretending to be a prude and reacting to those
songs like I’m all offended! I mean, there was humor to be made out of that,
right? I told myself “Hey, it’s gonna be funny, you’ll see! Plus, I bet you
anything that the fans of Game Grumps are gonna notice the joke, so you’re
gonna be perfectly fine! It’s not like their large fanbase will run you over
for talking shit about StarBomb when it’s clearly an April Fools review, right?
You never listened to the full album, maybe you’ll enjoy it!”
Well, no. I am dropping the act. This review went to
places I never wanted it to go, and I am not “in-character” anymore. I was fine
for the first few tracks – and my reactions to “Luigi’s Ballad” and “It’s
Dangerous To Go Alone” were exaggerations, I was still pretending to be prude.
In fact, I actually enjoy “It’s Dangerous To Go Alone” enough to go back and rewatch
it pretty often. But the album’s humor seriously got old starting with “Rap Battle: Ryu
VS Ken”, and by the end I wasn’t laughing. It was all just… shock for shock’s
sake, like a bad Seltzer and Friedberg movie. So... like a Seltzer and Friedberg movie, basically.
I can take a lot of comedy. I am not shy with sexual humor. But this was overkill. One dick joke after the other, with barely any breaks. If you like this album, then like it. This review of mine shouldn’t impact your opinion of the album. I don’t want to get hate from the fans of Game Grumps for this review, and I don’t want people to tell me “You don’t get it”. I get it; it’s just not for me. Look, I respect these guys, I even stay true to my word that Egoraptor and Ninja Sex Party are usually very talented. Hell, I will probably go back and listen to NSP's Under the Covers and any other song of theirs that I enjoy. But this talent was wasted on this album that I, personally, believe to be terrible.
I can take a lot of comedy. I am not shy with sexual humor. But this was overkill. One dick joke after the other, with barely any breaks. If you like this album, then like it. This review of mine shouldn’t impact your opinion of the album. I don’t want to get hate from the fans of Game Grumps for this review, and I don’t want people to tell me “You don’t get it”. I get it; it’s just not for me. Look, I respect these guys, I even stay true to my word that Egoraptor and Ninja Sex Party are usually very talented. Hell, I will probably go back and listen to NSP's Under the Covers and any other song of theirs that I enjoy. But this talent was wasted on this album that I, personally, believe to be terrible.
Also, wow, this got dark for an April Fools review. Considering
it IS April Fools, can you tell whether the dark turn was intentional or not?
After all, maybe it was another prank on top of the original prank… But you’ll
never know.
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