The Spirit of Apollo, the debut album from production duo N.A.S.A (North America South America), has an absolutely bonkers roster of guest collaborators. On the album’s 17 songs, Squeak E. Clean and DJ Zegon’s Brazilian funk-inspired tracks provide the backdrop for David Byrne to hook up with Chuck D, for Karen O to rock the mic with Ol’ Dirty Bastard, for Kanye West to get together with Lykke Li, and for Ghostface Killah to kick it old school with The Cool Kids, to name but a few of the album’s insane alliances.
While these team-ups are occasionally head-explodingly awesome in principle (Kool Keith and Tom Waits!) and obviously provide the album’s greatest draw, they also inevitably lead to Apollo burning up on the launch pad. None of N.A.S.A’s songs are downright failures, but none of them live up to the promise they carry with such a loaded, fantasy collaborator list.
Unfortunately, though each celebrity guest sounds like they’re having a great time mixing it up with one another, they don’t let listeners join in on the fun. As a conversation starter, The Spirit of Apollo is second to none, but it’s more of a demonstration of how sick N.A.S.A’s address book is than the great party album it aspires to be.
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