Has Al ever done a Trek parody before? I can't remember... Also I thought it was pretty funny that Madonna herself gave him the idea to do "Like A Surgeon."
Umm, I think the problem isn't with Al, it's with you. And those darn young Whippersnappers. I also had no idea it was Aisha in that video either! I gotta see that epic rap battle video Definitely some timeless stuff. Love it... started sharing videos like "Eat It" with my kids... I think she speaks perfectly to the superficiality in pop & hip hop, and it sounds great. Also, surprised no one mentioned the story of how Al tried to contact her people to get permission, but never got a response. So he flew to a concert in Austrailia and asked her personally for permission (one of the other great things about Weird Al -- getting permission. Which, for any respectable artist, should be an automatic yes). Man...that's a shame...I think they'd let Weird Al go ahead and do it... "That's What I call Polka" was a great take on 2013 song "Polka Gangnam Style!" Also, I went to Northwestern University in the early 90's. "Sports Song" would've totally been perfect for us.
I love this take off. As indeed I do 'Word Crimes'. Dare I say it, but I also really like 'Happy' too. Does that make me tacky?
Sports Song is wonderful. My favorite Weird Al songs tend to be the ones that stand up on their own without knowing the source song. Mission Statement is also a really good one. You don't need to know that it's Crosby, Stills, Nash, Young style and that they wrote a lot of hippieish stuff in the 60s to enjoy it, but knowing that makes it funnier.
I like Happy, too, as well as the warm fuzzies it gave me the first time I heard it. But I think the major faults are: 1. that it's played EVERYWHERE, ad nauseum 2. that that overplaying was engineered by Pharrell himself, since he made the "World's First 24 Hour Music Video" for the song (though the occasional celebrity cameos and seeing all types of people dancing to the song was infectious).
Another thing I like about Mandatory Fun, all the songs are satire. None of them are about food. Weird Al finally understands that the food songs aren't that funny.
He's never done a parody, but he mentions "bowling on the starship Enterprise" in Stuck in a Closet with Vanna White, and trying to decide if liked Kirk or Picard in White and Nerdy. I would have loved to have heard Make It So, though
I don't get the complaints about not knowing the songs. Weird Al has always done parodies of contemporary songs. Sure he might occasionally go back a few years, but I don't think Mandary Fun would be #1 on the charts if it was filled with parodies of songs from the 80's. Are they funnier if you know what they are parodying? Of course! But, I don't think that should handicap him to only parodying songs from the past. And judging by album sales, it's not likely he'll change if he does make another album. Besides, he usually parodies songs that are a part of the zeitgeist. I don't listen to the radio anymore, though I do have kids, and through them, I've become acquainted with some of these songs. After hearing all last summer about the song, I first heard "Blurred Lines" in full during Stephen Colbert's "Colbchella 2013" episode. I first heard "Royals" and "Fancy" when my oldest daughter showed me the videos for each. Though not being a fan of "Fancy" or Iggy Azalea, I did enjoy the video since it is based on "Clueless." I do love "Royals" and Lorde, though. I learned about "Happy," through my youngest son, who sang it in music class in Kindergarten. There is the possiblity, that it could work in reverse. Hearing the parodies could prompt you to check out the original songs. You might even find you like a few of them. Or not.
Also Mission Statement is a parody of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Weird Al doesn't only parody contemporary songs. There are a lot of people who grew up listening to Weird Al and were introduced to the source material THROUGH Weird Al. I heard Like A Surgeon long before Like A Virgin and Dog Eat Dog long before Once In A Lifetime, and in a way they led me to the original songs. It shouldn't work any differently just because you're older now. Just, when you were a kid it led you to your dad's music, and when you're an adult it leads you to your kids' music.
A couple of his food songs are good, if he's doing something interesting with them. Usually all he's doing is listing out the names of foods, like with Lasagna or Grapefruit Diet. Weird Al's most boring songs tend to be the ones where he's just listing out things around a theme to the tune of a popular song instead of really making any jokes about them. I think in the period of time when he released Bad Hair Day and Running With Scissors he really started falling into that rut. He doesn't just do that with food either, with All About The Pentiums he's pretty much just throwing out computer terms. Boring. But most of Mandatory Fun he's making jokes instead of just listing things.
All About the Pentiums is brilliant. Hell, the first part of the song is pure gold! What y'all wanna do? Wanna be hackers? Code crackers? Slackers Wastin' time with all the chatroom yakkers? 9 to 5, chillin' at Hewlett Packard? Workin' at a desk with a dumb little placard? Yeah, payin' the bills with my mad programming skills Defraggin' my hard drive for thrills I got me a hundred gigabytes of RAM I never feed trolls and I don't read spam Installed a T1 line in my house Always at my PC, double-clickin' on my mizouse Upgrade my system at least twice a day I'm strictly plug-and-play, I ain't afraid of Y2K I'm down with Bill Gates, I call him "Money" for short I phone him up at home and I make him do my tech support It's all about the Pentiums, what? You've gotta be the dumbest newbie I've ever seen You've got white-out all over your screen You think your Commodore 64 is really neato What kinda chip you got in there, a Dorito? You're usin' a 286? Don't make me laugh Your Windows boots up in what, a day and a half? You could back up your whole hard drive on a floppy diskette You're the biggest joke on the Internet Your database is a disaster You're waxin' your modem, tryin' to make it go faster Hey fella, I bet you're still livin' in your parents' cellar Downloadin' pictures of Sarah Michelle Gellar And postin' "Me too!" like some brain-dead AOL-er I should do the world a favor and cap you like Old Yeller You're just about as useless as jpegs to Hellen Keller
Not really that much of a shame, since the version that exists is already awesome enough. [yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7h7Mfe8BDw[/yt]
One of the greater things about Tacky is how it completely makes fun of current obsessions, everything from Instagramming everything you eat to my personal fave line, which is, "my brand new resume is written in Comic Sans".
Can someone post a link to the campaign to have Weird Al be the Super Bowl halftime show? it'd be perfect -- no worries of "wardrobe malfunctions", middle fingers, or words to be bleeped out. And if a couple of the celebrities he's parodying could JOIN him for part of the real song, part of the Al version -- it'd get the crowd crazy! How many songs would get? I could see the lineup of 1. Classic Al song 2. Mandatory Fun song 3. Brand New song available to download 10 minutes before the premiere 4. A Polka medley of 2014 hits