JIMMY FALLON

Blow Your Pants Off 

[Warner Bros.]

When he released his first album, 2002’s The Bathroom Wall, Jimmy Fallon was a  Saturday Night Live cast member best known for co-hosting the Weekend Update segment and occasionally pulling out his acoustic guitar to parody popular songs. After leaving SNL, Fallon took over from Conan O’Brien as the host of Late Night and promptly made the show his own—in part thanks to his winning musical comedy efforts. Fallon has developed such an uncanny skill for vocal impressions that his takes on Neil Young and Bob Dylan have been mistaken for the real thing—at least among listeners willing to believe that Young would croon the “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” theme with straight-faced sincerity.  Fallon’s long-in-coming sophomore effort showcases his Late Night musical efforts, many of which involve seemingly incongruous ideas colliding in spectacular fashion. Fallon and comic competitor Stephen Colbert join American Idol winner Taylor Hicks for a celebratory version of Rebecca Black’s so-bad-it’s-awesome “Friday”; Justin Timberlake trades verses with Fallon on the two-and-a-half-minute medley of hip-hop classics “History of Rap”; and, most improbably, Fallon-as-Young teams with a game Bruce Springsteen for a drama-soaked rendition of the Willow Smith novelty hit “Whip My Hair.” By the time Paul McCartney turns up for a version of “Yesterday” that sings the praises of breakfast foods (“Scrambled Eggs,” playing off McCartney’s oft-cited original title for the Beatles classic), it seems as if there’s nothing that Jimmy Fallon can’t charm rock’s greatest names into doing for a good-natured laugh. –Chris Neal

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