If Spank Rock sound like a bunch of college kids clowning around, that's probably not so far off the mark. Until just a few years ago, that's exactly what they were. But while injecting hip-hop with a much-needed dose of humor, on their debut album "YoYoYoYoYo" the Baltimore duo have delivered a refreshing take on the genre. Not that all the parts are necessarily new -- they reference the beats and bleeps from 1980s electro and hip-hop -- but they throw them together with a funk groove and punk attitude that is completely now.
On tracks such as the hilarious "Touch Me," Spank Rock take the whole sexual bravado thing to sublimely ridiculous levels, with lines such as "I had one on the futon, one in the shower, one in the back seat, three this past hour." With too many rappers taking themselves and their claimed sexual conquests seriously, it's good to see that SR have a healthy disregard for accepted notions of what hip-hop should be.