Classic or Dud: Weird Al Yankovic

spaz if you want to

Weird Al seems a bit eugenicist, too, with his desire to get grammar offenders out of the gene pool — perhaps less compassionate than The Onion's old nation's educators alarmed by poorly written suicide notes.
The heroic persistence of Yankovic marches alongside the progressive normalization of geek culture, which may find itself enraged that the tools it created have made the voices of those it hates all the more publicly visible/audible ("we gave them Spell Check, yet look what they do!"). Weird Al generally seems innocuous enough to me, but this song seems to feed off some genuine resentment (even if it's not quite Al's own so much as something that "just works" for the song — not that I know one way or the other). What happened to daring to be stupid? One could care less about these things!

Yes Weird Al Yankovic is deliberately advocating for Eugenics, great call and excellent interpretation

This is ilm. We can ruin anything.

the entire premise of the song is dickish grammar nazi shit that anyone over 20 should have grown out of

sorry i didn't realise he was some sort of national treasure or w/e but yknow, deal

Can we all just go back and watch the "Foil" video again?

Seriously. Do it now if you haven't done it already.

The "I" of Weird Al's songs is alway Weird Al himself. He is also a fat surgeon who was in Nirvana.

he cannot pretend

he must actually be it

also he was in love with ricky?

the entire premise of the song is dickish grammar nazi shit that anyone over 20 should have grown out of

yes, i'm glad you got the joke!

With proper disciple "humour" is not necessary

I'm pretty offended by Al's use of the word "Weird." Is it meant as a perjorative? Isn't he reifying received norms with its usage? Perhaps "Decentered/Problematized Al" would serve as a more useful nomiker.

― relentlessly pecking at peace (President Keyes), Thursday, July 17, 2014 9:32 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

genius post imo

http://www.avclub.com/article/weird-al-yankovic-answers-our-11-questions-206949

5. How would your enemies describe you?

WAY: Very poorly, I’m sure. Probably using monosyllabic words, bad grammar, improper syntax. I have to assume my enemies are idiots.

otm based on available sample

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cqg-YZhr3bA

so i googled to see whether weird al has ever acknowledged that his "trigger happy" was a total jack of "Skeet Surfin" from Top Secret and all i found was a big interview he did with the dissolve about Top Secret where he mentions how great "skeet surfin" is without bringing up "trigger happy."

maybe he made a deal with z.a.z. where in exchange for them not suing he has to praise the movie whenever possible?

lol i love that naked gun scene

i'm sure he takes a lot of inspiration from other comedy and sometimes it's just more transparent than it usually is. when the guy's whole thing is parodying ostensibly 'serious' songs, there's a weird gray area as far as borrowing from fellow comedians. i was always annoyed at "Truck Drivin' Song," which is like a carbon copy of the whole concept of Monty Python's "Lumberjack Song."

the new one, "sports song," is up - some funny lines but my least favorite so far, people doin the "I will hip you to how silly sports fandom is" thing is like

c'mon bro

sports song is like straight from the tom lehrer era

clearly inspired by "Fight Fiercely Harvard", but he takes it somewhere else, and it's good.

It's no "Fight Fiercely, Harvard".

xp fuck

Heh, while looking up to see if I could find any info on the "Trigger Happy"-"Skeet Surfin" connection I found this thread from a newsgroup from 1992.

Oh wow, I never even heard "Fight Fiercely Harvard." It's pretty decentered/problematized that I made that connection anyway, wow.

But yeah, it's so Tom Lehrer/Allen Shermany that I was kind of disappointed that the video wasn't like full of fur coats and triangular flags

HURL THAT SPHEROID DOWN THE FIELD

DEMONSTRATE TO THEM OUR PROWESS, DO!

Tim and Eric have the best sports song

do you wanna go sit in the cell where we put the guy who said Flying Conchords are better than Weird Al?

BECAUSE THERE'S PLENTY OF ROOM

a nice roomy cell sounds nice yes thank you

VG forgot to mention that we filled it with farts

are they smelly farts?

lots of people eating fried and poached eggs around here. they are probably smelly.

pickled weiners.

also vegemite

FWIW I find it kind of endearing (if bizarre) that this weird release format is putting really close, brief attention on what are, videos aside, obviously Weird Al album tracks, a dicey category of song for at least two decades. Love the guy at his best but buying a Weird Al CD always involved some recognition that there would be some lame jokes that didn't work, some concepts pushed too far, some forced wackiness etc etc - - - so yeah surprise surprise not all these tracks are genius, I'm just amazed he can still actually knock out a few parody songs that people like and laugh at, this late in his career.

*gives weird al a treat*
*pats weird al on head*

i think the pastiches on this one are better executed than the straight-up parodies tbh

"on this one" hardly necessary there imo

yeah, still blown away by the pixies one

there should be a playlist of pixies parody songs

There is no class of patients referred to simply as "spastic" by doctors in North America (and I don't think in the UK either). The word sometimes is used as an adjective to describe a pattern of gait or a form of dysarthria.

thanks for clearing this up Plasmon; I would hope it was obvious that I was referring to the former usage as being nonexistent in the US

many many xp

there should be a playlist of pixies parody songs

It's called Indie Cindy.

haaaa

My piano teacher from high school has been in Al's touring band for >20 years :)

and he's the newbie of the group! i don't know why i find the consistency of his line-up so cool but i do

from steve jay's website:

Stephen's bass recording credits include 3 Grammy winners and 9 Grammy nominated albums. He is the credited bassist on 9 Gold and 5 Platinum albums (RIAA). Stephen specializes in combining ethnic and modern instruments to create a blend of the exotic and contemporary. His world music experience includes live performance and studies throughout West Africa and Southeast Asia. From his field recording of world music Stephen produced 2 albums for the Nonesuch Explorer Series. He has scored more than seventy nationally broadcast PBS specials and series episodes, including three George Foster Peabody Award winners, and contributed to TV and feature films. His background includes a BA and MM Graduate Fellowship in composition, and studies with composers John Cage, Lucas Foss, Max Neuhaus and Charles Wuronien. Stephen's past work includes performing and recording with Rick Derringer, Wayne Shorter, Hugh Masekela, Alex Acuna, Luis Conte, Isah Hamani, Joe Higgs, Betty Buckley, Jimmy Haskell and others. He is an original and continuing member of "Weird Al" Yankovic's band.

"oh and i've played Eat It for 30 years"

Ruben's:

After leading Santa Cruz, California's most popular funk/fusion group Rush Hour for seven years, Rubén moved to L.A. Soon after arriving, he was playing, recording and traveling the World with members of groups such as Santana, Aretha Franklin, Elton John, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross, Chaka Khan, Shakira, Marc Anthony, Tom Jones, Temptations, Deniece Williams, Natalie Cole, Tower of Power, et al.
Following International tours with rock legend Glenn Hughes/Deep Purple and blues legend Charlie Musselwhite, Rubén found himself touring and recording with Rock/comedy icon "Weird Al" Yankovic.