Starbomb (Starbomb Album)

(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 1^st, 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.

Here’s the full album, by the way. 

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.

The following track is “Luigi’s Ballad”, where Luigi and Mario compete for Peach’s affections – as you’d expect them to. Luigi is trying to be romantic and sweet, while Mario takes things south, to say the least. Mario, a sex-obsessed jerk who just wants to get into Peach’s privates? That’s an automatic Nope machine for me. Oh, and he makes no less than 10 innuendos out of stuff from the Mario series, in 25 seconds. Classy. The rest of the song isn’t much better, and it ends with Peach choosing Toad over the two brothers, and her reasoning is, I quote, “his whole body’s shaped like a dick”.

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.

Next up is “Rap Battle: Ryu VS Ken”. If you expect something to the level of Epic Rap Battles of History, you’ll be sorely disappointed. I mean, most of the lines about Ryu are about… Yep, you guessed that right, they’re almost all about genitals. Whether it’s Ryu’s 27 brags about the size of his apparel, or his blatant insults implying Ken’s got nearly nothing down there. Is it too much to ask for some songs on this album to NOT. GO. THERE? PLEASE? And of course the end joke is all about Ken being pretty much unable to rap back. That’s about it. Oh, and Street Fighter puns. Because of course.

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 1^st, 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…

On to “Regretroid”. Oh fantastic, what are they going to sing about to ruin Metroid for everyone now? Of course, vulgarity, mentions of her boobs – because that’s totally what matters about her, am I right? Then Kraid shows up, threatens to eat Samus. The song makes certain to mention the inevitable end of the digestive process as a potential fate for Samus. …Thanks, guys, I really needed the mental image of Kraid’s poop. (Hint hint, I really didn’t.) And so, when Kraid sees that Samus is a girl, he instead start trying to woo her with pies and puppies. Focus on fanservice, Egoraptor’s lyrics make sure to mention Samus’ ass, because of course he had to mention that. After Kraid presented puppies to her, when she kills him, she also kills the puppies.

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.

So… The second-to-last song is “The Simple Plot of Final Fantasy 7”, where Cloud is on a talk-show with characters of simple games, trying to explain the story of his grand adventure. And of course he starts going on and on about it, while the host tries to shut him up. Compared to the horrifying track that comes before it, this track is actually fairly decent, as they toned down the sex jokes – though without removing them entirely. In the end, Cloud goes crazy from being interrupted all the time while explaining his ultra-complicated life story, and ends up getting killed at the end. Eh, whatever. At least it wasn't as stupidly vulgar as the others.

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 1^st “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.

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.