

Weird Al Endures - Mz
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2014/07/weird-al-yankovic-endures.html

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gfodor
I don't think this person "gets" Weird Al's typical album. At the risk of
sounding like someone who is a bit too familiar with Al's work, generally
speaking the songs Al does fall into five groups:

\- Songs about the song they are parodying (like "Smells Like Nirvana")

\- Songs that are pitch-perfect parodies of a song but of a completely
different subject. (Most of his popular songs, "Eat It" to "Like a Surgeon",
etc, etc)

\- Songs of their own subject but whose music are parodies (or inspirations
of) an artist or genre. ("Mission Statement" on this album seems to be
inspired by the hippie acoustic hits of the 60s and 70s, "Germs" was basically
a Nine Inch Nails song but none in specific.)

\- One-off songs that usually have a gimmick or something but not be overtly
attempting to musically parody a specific song, artist, or genre.
("Albuquerque" was a really, really long song, "Lame Claim To Fame" is a
running joke about people who point out how they have some N'th degree
tangential relationship to someone famous.)

\- Each album has a (always incredible) polka track where a dozen or so songs
are rapidly parodied as polkas. It's always the one that gets stuck in my
head.

The article seems to think the best of Al's work is when he parodies a song
into one with commentary on the song itself (or the artist, etc.) But in
reality this is a very small sliver of the type of thing Al does, I can
probably count on one hand the number of tracks that are akin to "Smells Like
Nirvana" where the song is about the band and the song he's parodying. Of
course, intellectual wankery is generally drawn to this type of "meta-
commentary" just because it's seemingly more complex than a straight up
parody, but if you have listened to Al over the years you'll realize the guy
is ridiculously talented. Though most of his songs are silly, the range of
themes, styles, subject matter, and even his personal vocal range are
astounding, nevermind the fact that his band has a pretty brutal touring
schedule and have been playing some of these songs for like 20-25 years now. I
mean, basically the guy likely takes the chorus of the song he is parodying,
comes up with some options that work lyrically, and then has to _build a song_
around that. One track on this album is called "Foil," probably at first
because the word works well for the chorus. How many people could then
honestly write an entire well-written, entertaining song about foil? Most
artists seem to be trapped in their own style, but honestly despite the
surface-level silliness aspect to his music he manages to pull off tunes from
so many parts of the musical spectrum I'd probably argue he's the most
"Renaissance Man" musician out there.

~~~
mcfunley
> "Mission Statement" on this album seems to be inspired by the hippie
> acoustic hits of the 60s and 70s

At the risk of sounding like someone who is a bit too familiar with the hippie
acoustic hits of the 60s and 70s: this is a pastiche of "Carry On" and "Suite
Judy Blue Eyes" by CSNY.

