In our post-ironic world, how serious can you take a DJ duo that used a giant inflatable duck wearing a letterman jacket as a mascot? Not very, if you were to ask Duck Sauce members/respective house and electro legends Armin van Buuren and A-Trak, whose mission with the creation of Duck Sauce was to be a silly, dumb nu-disco revival duo. It was pretty good timing when they did begin Duck Sauce, as it was '09 and shit like Miami Horror, Bag Raiders, Danger, Kavinsky, and many other "outrun" artists were infiltrating the charts, clubs, raves, and music festivals worldwide. Their debut EP "Greatest Hits" scratched an itch many didn't know they had with its clever sampling and sticky hooks, like those on debut single "aNYway" (with the NY capitalized to pay respect to the city Duck Sauce was largely formed in and took musical inspiration from.) Although this 70's/80's crossover revival was climbing in popularity, peaking, of course, when Drive came out, many of us had reached our point of oversaturation after a half decade of the Daft Punk-biting and nostalgia-aping, which left Duck Sauce at the time a footnote in each of its respective artists' careers.

This completely - and I mean COMPLETELY - changed in mid 2010 when they decided to continue the project and release the ubiquitous, and annoying, "Barbra Streisand" (cue dozens of basic bitches whooping the chorus). That song singlehandedly revived both public interest in Duck Sauce, and A-Trak/Armin's interest in it as well. The money train had come into the station and the two DJs saw their opportunity. Fast forward three-and-a-half years later and now we have "Quack", the debut full-length LP for Duck Sauce, a once joke project that set said inflatable mascot down a river a year after first using it.

The popularity of "Barbra Streisand" haunts "Quack"; the bouncy house kicks, mindless mantra, and sticky, plastic melody behind that song are repeated and replicated ad nauseum with most of the original tracks here, ostensibly in an attempt to mimic its success and popularity, and the one note attitude does severe damage to the debut. Adding insult to injury, it's also plagued with unfunny pun-based skits that tire quickly barely one listen in - going through the album without skipping tracks being some form of intellectual torture. The actual "Barbra Streisand" is not entirely the same song that dominated the dance world four years ago. There's a slight update with added samples and midi horns, probably in an effort to bring some variation to the well-worn track, with mixed results. The appeal to such an admittedly dumb concept, one that Migos would later tap into as it ignites some primal urge to hear words repetiously hammered into your skull on the back of a catchy beat, was something "Streisand" pioneered. However, hearing the same basic song nearly ten times throughout "Quack"'s hour-long duration gets predictably aggravating and, dare I say, boring.

It's not all bad news for "Quack", though. It skirts past pure shittiness and into mediocrity on the strength of a few songs. "aNYway" is one of these bright spots, and unlike "Streisand", remains faithful to its original incarnation. The pure disco flavour of the track with its Final Edition sampled vocals and addictive synth work, in addition to its increasingly bombastic breakdown that fucks with the listener's expectations and, in a Pavlovian-like physical response, has them salivate for the eventual drop of "I can...", which upgrades to pure euphoria with the phrase's finish: "... do it anyway that you want it" sell the Duck Sauce concept better than anything else here. "NRG" and "Everyone", the latter featuring Chromeo's Dave One under the asinine pseudonym Teddy Toothpick for whatever reason, ditch the tired big room antics in exchange for "aNYway"-like inspired disco burners. The former lives up to its name with a, well, high energy stomp and pure kitsch modulated guitars. The 80's fetishizing is what killed the original electro scene, but when it's an element of the product rather than a cheap modern substitute, you still get cheese, but at least it's edible. "Everyone" is may be prefaced with a 15 second groaner of a skit dealing with radio shlock jock jokes, but what follows is a serious attempt at approximating the salacious sleaze of the late disco era in the best way possible, and is the best song with a "feat" tagged onto it, hands down. A-Trak may insist on Duck Sauce being a huge joke that you're not in on, but "Everyone" tells a different tale. The Duck Sauce duo may set mascots down the river and sell bath toys on their online store and assure you in every interview how not serious this all is, but I have a hard time swallowing that after listening to "Quack". The shameless pandering to the braindead EDM e-tards, set up against the cheap, grating skits send mostly mixed signals. One remains mostly clear, though: Duck Sauce isn't as much a joke anymore as it is a cash-in, and A-Trak and Armin are quacking all the way to the bank. Barbra Streisand.