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Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping Reminds Me of The Days I Loved The Lonley Island

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When I was a kid, I loved The Lonley Island. Known for their skits for Saturday Night Live, the three are known for their comedic songs which manage to get features like Michel Bolton [VIDEO 3:17] and Akon [VIDEO 2:56]. After watching jokes on Pete Davison’s father1, I saw a video by the American September (a 9/11 memorial project) on how movie terrorists changed after 9/11 [VIDEO 11:36]. I forgot the specifics, but there was one part featuring a song which went like “Fuck Bin Laden”. I looked into it and that’s from the song Finest Girl (Bin Laden Song) [VIDEO: 2:44] that was made for the movie Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping.

I’ve outgrown the Lonley Island, but it was an enjoyable movie. It’s a mockumentary (though slightly based on the troupe’s real life experiences) about the singer Conner4Real (played by Adam Samberg). Throughout the movie, you get to hear incredible hits which go like:

  • She wanted me to fuck her like Bin Laden
  • Mona Lisa, you’re an overrated piece of shit2
  • Stomping through the forest like a retarted Tyrannosaurus
  • The whole song “Equal Rights” where he keeps letting us know he’s very much not gay, much to P!nk’s annoyance.
  • Maya Rudolf saying the hard r
  • Holographic Adam Levine singing “I’m So Humble”3
  • Pensive Michel Bolton and Justin Timberlake as a singing chef-fish, among other things.

Throughout the film, Connor is not so much evil as he is just oblivious as he sidelines his friends from childhood and opts to surround himself with yes-men. The movie is a parody of the music industry, particularly concert films, and the ecosystem surrounding it; musician’s antics, unwanted product tie-ins and so on. I’m still amazed at how they get so many headliners to feature in film even outside the singing. Like, Ringo had to remind Connor that gay marriage was legal at the time he made the “Equal Rights” song.

Sadly, the movie didn’t get much attention when it was made which Adam Samburg attributes to bad marketing. The movie’s title was a play on Justin Beiber’s Never Say Never film that came out 4 years prior. While Justin Biber was huge in the early 2010’s (both in terms of admiration and hate), it had more than fissled out by the time this movie came out in 2016.

In all an enjoyable movie which makes me want to watch the other movies the Lonley Island featured in.

  1. Pete Davison’s father was a fire fighter who died on 9/11. Being a comedian and a fan of roasts, this is a source for some incredibly dark comedy. My favorite one is by Jimmy Carr [VIDEO 0:24] which is absolutley brutal. If you can take jokes like these, no wonder you get to date incredibly hot babes. ↩︎

  2. Though I’ve been to France, I’ve never gone to the Louvre. Apparently the painting itself is quite small and you can only see it from slightly away. Also, nobody cared about the Mona Lisa until it got stolen. ↩︎

  3. The hologram was incredibly well done and I’m not sure why he had to send cringey sexts. Then again, sexts are generally cringe and if yours aren’t, I’ll gladly publish them for the world to judge. ↩︎