Being Broke Made My Head Hurt

N.A.S.A. featuring Kanye West, Lykke Li, and Santogold “Gifted”

One of the running themes of Joe Matt‘s comics is his obsession with crafting personalized porn videos by dubbing and editing his favorite scenes into a single tape designed to maximize his arousal. It’s very creepy, but certainly pragmatic in its way, and if you transpose the concept to pop music, you essentially have the blueprint for Girl Talk’s albums — no budget, guided by OCD impulses, and focused on efficiently producing nonstop pointless pleasure.

On the surface, N.A.S.A.’s The Spirit of Apollo seems to have a lot in common with Girl Talk. There’s a similar joy in the pile-up of familiar voices, and both acts share an interest in putting rock and pop artists into the context of well-known rappers and hip hop-centric beats. The taste overlaps quite a bit, but their methods are drastically different: If there is any real world analogue for N.A.S.A., it’s those fabulously wealthy Russian oligarchs who pay big name artists millions to perform at their private parties. Though the cavalcade of superstars on The Spirit Of Apollo mostly turn in good performances and the juxtaposition of certain artists can be inspired, it’s very hard to get away from the impression that the project is driven by much more than money, connections, and a vain desire to pack in as many top-drawer guests as possible, as if it were more of an awards show than a pop album.

“Gifted,” one of the album’s clear highlights, starts off with a strong though formulaic rap from Kanye West that matches the style of his verses from Graduation, and hits most of the same talking points from that period. Still, despite the nagging sense that we’re listening to a studio outtake, West’s charisma and instinct for simple, propulsive rhymes allows the song to build up enough momentum to allow Lykke Li to really glimmer and pop on the chorus. Santogold’s performance is neither here nor there, and so Li gets to dominate the track from the moment West disappears, which works out rather well given that the timbre of her voice nicely complements the particular synth tones in N.A.S.A.’s arrangement.

Buy it from Amazon.