Imagine a pop-culture experiment gone horribly wrong, where evil scientists surgically remove the irony and humor from The Lonely Island and create an unholy new beast that’s mistakenly unleashed into the wild. Actually, there’s no need to imagine: LMFAO is that beast, and the L.A. joke-rap duo’s second record, Sorry For Party Rocking, is already wreaking bloody havoc on the pop charts. The group’s smash single “Party Rock Anthem” encapsulates the LMFAO aesthetic: Over a grade-school Euro-pop beat directly descended from Black Eyed Peas’ mentally challenged milieu—Will.i.am is Sorry’s executive producer—DJs-MCs Redfoo and SkyBlu extol the virtues of an empty club-centric lifestyle while smugly winking about what shallow morons they are. Sorry For Party Rocking is a dumb party record that knows it’s a dumb party record. But while self-awareness seems like a cultural “Get Out Of Jail Free” card these days, it doesn’t make LMFAO any less obnoxious.
The lame witticisms that litter the likes of “Sexy And I Know It” (“When I’m at the beach, I’m in the Speedo, trying to tan my cheeks”) make Sorry For Party Rocking unbearable without the assistance of several stiff cocktails. Getting wasted might well be the point of LMFAO’s music, but even Ke$ha—who’s roughly the female equivalent of LMFAO—is capable of producing songs that are reasonably well-crafted and catchy outside the club. Sorry For Party Rocking is best enjoyed during that brief window of time between the last drink of a long night, and the inevitable passing out. With any luck, these irritating earworms will get the lost in the morning-after blackout.