From We’re Back! the opening track, to the No Homo Outro, Turtleneck & Chain is both an amazing hip hop album and an amazing satire of hip hop albums. Pulling off either one is a tall order on its own; that Lonely Island manages to do both is proof that they’re not just a great comedy group, they’re a great hip hop group too.

And this is coming from a guy who dislikes comedy music in general and is a massive hip hop fan. My gripe with comedy songs is that just about every one I’ve heard was poorly sung or *shudder* rapped over crappy music, the conceit being that the song was so hilarious that it didn’t matter that it sounded like crap. And adding to the degree of difficulty here is that it’s three white guys performing; the track record of white rappers in the annals of hip hop being underwhelming, to be be generous. But as they proved on their first album, Incredibad, these cats can flow. And it’s impressive that they haven’t fallen into the sophomore slump that so many acts do.

While  Incredibad featured a variety of genres from country and reggae to 80’s glam pop and 80’s rap, Turtleneck & Chain is almost all hip-hop. It skewers rap culture in songs like Trouble on Dookie Island, where they rap about a robbery gone wrong and all the ways they shit their pants in the ensuing chase and shootout; and No Homo, where they poke fun at the homophobia heard in gangsta rap. It also has songs that are silly fun, like Rocky and Japan; includes some of their recent SNL Digital Shorts like Mother Lover, I Just Had Sex and Jack Sparrow; and adds funny interludes like Falcor vs. Atreyu and Watch Me Do Me to round it all out.

Who does the beats for these guys? I know I’ll have this album in heavy rotation long after I’m done laughing at it, because it sounds so damn good. The album features the talents of some heavyweights and not-so-heavyweights in the music industry like Rihanna, Akon, Santigold, Snoop Dogg, Nicki Minaj, Michael Bolton and Justin Timberlake, and it’s refreshing to see them poking fun at themselves.

You listened to the tracks in this review. You see that this shit is hilarious. I really don’t think you can go wrong picking up this album. Unless you hate hip hop. Or laughing. Actually, even if you do, give this album a listen anyway, it might change your mind.