World of Weird Al Yankovic

TMBJon wrote: I don't know how this plays into what you're trying to do, but I have heard Al himself say that One More Minute is supposed to be Nick Rivers (from the movie Top Secret!) doing Elvis. Basically a spoof of a spoof.

I hadn't heard that, but I actually picked "Are You Lonesome Tonight?" because Nick sings a parody of it in Top Secret & I knew Al was a fan of that movie (as am I.) I couldn't think of an Elvis song that was closer to OMM than that, so I figured that's what he was going for.

"Leper Colony" may resemble a Springsteen song, but it's the Bo Diddley beat. Pretty standard. I thought the consensus was "Willie and the Hand Jive" (1958).

But the Diddley beat is the only thing "Hand Jive" has in common with "Leper Colony." That's kind of like saying it's a style parody of "I Want Candy" or "Who Do You Love." Meanwhile, Springsteen's "She's The One" (past the 1:15 mark or so) has Diddley beat, a similar piano line & a saxophone solo.

Yeah, but that's a bit like saying "Wanna B Ur Lovr" is a style parody of Prince. It isn't. It's a style parody of Beck, who happens to be drawing a lot of Prince influence on the album Al was style parodying.

"Party At The Leper Colony" is quite clearly supposed to sound like "She's The One".

In fact, the smoking gun evidence is on bermudaschwartz.com, where an audio clip of PATLC is labeled "Bo Diddley Meets Springsteen"

Fair enough--hadn't heard "She's the One" before but all the elements are there. Of course, that raises the question of where songs like that and WBUL should fall into the timeline--Beck's Midnite Vultures album is essentially its own style parody of Prince, and one could probably argue that "She's the One" is more in line with records from the 50s/early 60s than 1975. Beck may have released MV in 1998, but it's not really representative of the sound of that era. Not trying to complicate the timeline any further, but I think those are two cases that could fall into difference places depending on whether you're looking at a specific song or where they best match the then-contemporary sound.

I see your point about Al parodying the style of an artist who, in the target song(s), is drawing heavily from another artist/era. It would be like if he did a Billy Joel style parody and chose "The Longest Time" as his target. In the case of WBUL, it's both clear and confirmed that it's Beck. To me, it's representative of Beck's output at that specific time, and Beck is an important artist. Prince will be covered by "Traffic Jam," so it's not a case of choosing one landmark over another (and Prince is obviously bigger on the grand spectrum than Beck.)

Ultimately, I think I have to just go by which artist Al himself was targeting and not worry about whether that artist was paying homage to someone else. There really aren't a lot of times where this will come up, so I don't think it's going to be a huge issue. In the case of PATLC, Diddley beat is so pervasive that I don't even consider songs that use it to be paying homage to Bo Diddley. It's just a good beat that works. Some of the artists who have used it probably don't even know where it started (just like I'm sure there are rappers who have used "Funky Drummer" and think they're sampling someone other than James Brown.)

This is the first I've seen "Midnight Star" mentioned as a possible Bruce Springsteen style parody--to me, it doesn't sound like Springsteen at all.

I remember hearing a long time ago, and it's in the wiki. I'm willing to completely disregard that idea though, since no one (including me) seems to believe that anymore. (I mean, listening to it with that in mind, I can hear where the thought comes from, but it's certainly not one that jumps out at you, even then.)

The wiki is able to be modified by anyone though. I could modify Nobody Here But Us Frogs to say it was a style parody of Beethoven. Doesnt make it true

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minnick27 wrote:The wiki is able to be modified by anyone though. I could modify Nobody Here But Us Frogs to say it was a style parody of Beethoven. Doesnt make it true

Wait, it isn't a style parody of Beethoven???