Classic or Dud: Weird Al Yankovic

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.

if i was rick rubin i'd try to get weird to make an album of songs that either stuck to his original accordion/fart sound template or really let his band of jazz-fusion guys wild out. "We either need to move forward, Weird...or we need to go all the way back...back to My Bologna."

"what if instead of making the band listen to ariana grande...why don't you just play 'Gollum' with the accordion...and let them react in the moment. Roll tape."

Apparently most of the fart sounds from his earlier albums came courtesy of "Musical Mike" Kieffer who hasn't seemed to have worked with Al since Headline News. But I do knd of miss that sound he brought to the recordings, as juvenile as it might be.

yeah the ones added to the mtv theme here are pretty great

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evEHos82Wew#t=38

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/e3662085fb/american-psycho-with-huey-lewis-and-weird-al

Countdown to Weird Al KEXP session and cinema verite video from the La Blogotheque folks in 5...4...3...

Listening to "Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota," dying of lols I'm not even sure it gave me as a lad. Would have been a great career-ender, really.

i was just hoping i could play this song as a fun intro to my classes in the fall and i can't because of the stupid mouthbreather thing
which means it's only good for the "grammar nazis", who are not my people

― La Lechera, Thursday, July 17, 2014 9:11 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

LL, have you seen this?
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=13521

I have just been alerted to the existence of this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBvh6JPSmy0

I thank you, Weird Al, from the bottom of my heart.

I think I've waited my whole life for "Mandatory Fun."

mo-ne-tiiiiizze our asssets

Paul McCartney, also a Yankovic fan, refused Yankovic permission to record a parody of Wings' "Live and Let Die", titled "Chicken Pot Pie", because McCartney is a vegetarian and found the parody to be improper.[81]

oh paulpaws

Today is the most time I've spent with Weird Al since listening to Dare to Be Stupid/Polka Party for about 2 years straight. What a treasure.

THIS SONG IS JUST SIX WORDS LONG
THIS SONG IS JUST SIIIIX WORDS LONG

From the excelsior thread:

What Carl Wilson gets wrong is his theory that Weird Al coarsens pop music when actually his pastiches and parodies show how songs about surgeons, Jeopardy, the Amish, etc are no more banal than pop songs. Dare to be stupid!

I always liked his pseudo-cock rock number "Young, Dumb, and Ugly"

RYE OR THE KAISER

omg don't eat prunes again

Accordion is amazing on ^that

Pixies have been done definitively. I just don't see the point of anyone ever trying it again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTZ0hYlto7Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmGy3WAQ_wk

that prunes thing has such a great punchline.

https://twitter.com/alyankovic/status/490724534513700864

hey now. take that off-topic post to the feminist theory thread.

but joking aside, I'm glad he apologized and confirmed that he did not know.

Yeah...the guy has never toured Europe in his entire career, so I could easily see him being unaware of a lot of language differences between here and England

I saw weird al in England, btw

He goes by 'Daft Albert' in England tho

Yeah but when he did ATP he said in an interview that he'd never performed in Europe before for 30 years

Hoping he'll replace the word with "fuckstick" in future editions and live shows

He should have never gone over there anyway. Touring America was good enough for Elvis.

104k copies sold first week - first comedy album to top the chart since 1963 apparently!

Read that as 104 copies and figured, yeah, sounds about right.

it's weird, it totally feels like weird al's moment right now! but why?? when he did alpocalypse three years ago nobody cared

He was able to leverage his brand across multiple social media platforms

it's weird, it totally feels like weird al's moment right now! but why??

Will be answered in Al's TED Talk

i think it's because alpocalypse wasn't very good.

Because almost half of Alpocalypse had already been released two years prior and the lead Lady Gaga parody single was kind of anti climatic?

I mean "Straight Out of Lynnwood" was pretty big, I thought that was Weird Al's moment too

i guess he's lucky that there have been 5 or 6 major catchy as shit recent singles for him to parody this time round?

Yeah most of the song parodies on this album are of songs from 2012-2013, whereas Alpocaypse's material wasn't as fresh at the time (Party in the USA, You Belong To Me, Whatever You Like) or just forgettable (Nothin On You).

yeah he definitely tries to have the right parody at the right time with every new album but it only really clicks every few albums. "Fat," "Smells Like Nirvana," "White & Nerdy," those are the ones that brought him roaring back when it seemed like he was finally fading away. this album feels a little different just because so far it's not just one song or video driving it...maybe in a month we'll be able to say oh "Word Crimes" or "Tacky" is the big one but right now it's hard to call.

The eight videos in eight days gimmick put Mandatory Fun over the top. He was a top story on the music/entertainment blogs every day for a week, and he debuted his videos through a lot of different platforms, which ensured that the videos reached a large number of people, who would then share on social media. It helps a lot that the songs and videos were all pretty good this time around, and that the songs he parodied were all inescapable, massive hits. Anyway, couldn't be happier for the Vicar of Yanks.

he's just at a really good spot, I know Weird Al is beloved by all ages but it seems like people between the ages of 12-15 really really like him, and a lot of those people became celebrities or worked in the entertainment industry and meanwhile Weird Al's career is still going. that's also the reason why They Might Be Giants constantly draws big crowds even though they haven't had a real hit in forever.

lot of alsplaining going on in here

"amish paradise" was the one everyone liked when i was a kid iirc

jesus christ how old am I

also I hadn't noticed that "Word Crimes" cracked the top 40, lolololol

i still encounter people reciting the amish paradise lyrics now and then