Couch Potato: The initial reaction was surprise--no one saw it coming and there was some laughs just realizing that it was Al. The first verse got somewhat talked over with conversation of the Eminem controversy (a lot of people really have heard about that) and talk of Al in general. The reaction to this was actually pretty good, with one guy asking who brought it in, and subsequently congratulating me on a good choice. I subsequently scared him a little bit by mentioning I had Al's whole library and then some. Predictably, one of the favored lines was the Will & Grace line. The majority of people were familiar with the original song (the office stereo system seems to have an angry white boy slant, which obviously will help later on), so a lot of people "got it" and enjoyed it.
Hardware Store: Yikes. A quick turn from good reaction to total indifference, except for two reactions: one guy said Al sounded like a Muppet Show reject, the other got up and turned the stereo down a bit.... guess the tool noises were sawing at his nerves. Didn't think this would get the best reaction but this was worse than hypothesized.
Trash Day: We go from worse-than-hypothesized to better-than-hypothesized. I like this song, but I know a few people around here didn't find trash to be too funny. Again, with most of the test subjects familiar with the original song, they appreciated the parody and found the trash jokes funny. The favored line in this song: "It's so filthy, now baby, I can't lie
I wipe my feet before I go outside."
Party at the Leper Colony: For some reason the earlier lowering-of-volume seemed to affect this song more than Trash Day. I had trouble hearing it myself and I know the lyrics. NOT ONE REACTION LOGGED TO THIS SONG. Not sure if it was the volume or not, but either no one could hear it or no one cared because it wasn't a parody. The latter is entirely possible because for the most part, the trend was people payed more attention when they recognized the song as a parody. One good thing did happen in the time this song was on though--one of the Russian programmers came over to me and broke the language barrier enough to compliment the quality of the music on the parodies. He couldn't believe how high-quality the replication of the originals was--he actually wasn't sure if Al sang over the original music or had a band. When I informed him of the latter he was HIGHLY impressed.
Angry White Boy Polka: Score! Some of these songs are some of those very same played-over-and-over songs I mentioned earlier. LOTS of laughs for this one. Best reactions were for Chop Suey and Down with the Sickness, but this was an all-around winner.
Wanna B Ur Lovr: This was one of the biggest surprises--a lot of laughs for the innuendos! Lots of love for "Girl you must be Jamaican... because Jamaican me crazy". Another friend of mine in my department busted out laughing at "I hope I'm not being forward but do you mind if I chew on your butt?" My manager busted out at "My love for you's like diarrhea--I just can't hold it in." I like this song a lot, but I was still surprised that the non-Al fan subjects appreciated it this much.
A Complicated Song: Tied with Angry White Boy Polka for the most-favored track on the album. My office finds constipation VERY FUNNY. More than a couple people commented that Avril bugs them and liked that Al took it on. One guy said the first verse was his biography--he's known for eating mostly pizza and nothing else, and well... I guess he has irregularity problems? The second and third verses scored almost as highly, but what can I say... bowel evacuation was the big winner. This met my expectations, since this is probably my favorite track on the album and figured/hoped it would do well.
Why Does This Always Happen To Me?: First and third verses didn't get much reaction, but the second verse got some laughs. One guy commented on the $5 was owed: "That's so true, I'd be mad too." The gory humor didn't register as much as I'd hoped, but at least the one guy liked it.
Ode to a Superhero: Another hit. Just about everybody seemed very familiar with the Spider-Man movie, and everyone and their poodle is familiar with Piano Man, so the combination worked.. lots 'o' laughs. As with many people here the most favored line was: "But to his great surprise it seems she prefers guys who can kiss upside down in the rain." I heard the president of my company chuckle at that as we walked through the production area. Russian Programmer Guy came back by to comment on the quality of the music.
Bob: MUCH better than hypothesized! Everyone got the fact that it was done in the style of Dylan right away. Many assumed it was gibberish and were pleased enough with that. When a few people realized that every line was a palindrome it actually blew them away. My manager's quote: "That's #*%^ing BIZARRE--I LOVE IT!" As far as the original songs go, the overall reaction was probably better to Wanna B Ur Lovr but the individual praises were definitely higher for Bob.
eBay: This was fairly well liked. It was much more appreciated by the faction of people who are known eBayers, which was an expected result. LOTS of laughs all around for: "Tell me why I bid on Shatner's old toupee / They had it on eBay". Unfortunately this was also mostly an unexpected premature end to the experiment...
Genius in France: I was actually very interested to hear what the reaction would be to this song. To my dismay, the president of the company got bent out of shape about some minor technical problem and the ensuing 7-person conversation in one corner of the room about it took away a good chunk of my test subjects and drowned out the lyrics for my remaining mice, er, co-workers. There's a good amount of people in my office who wholeheartedly dislike the French so I really wanted to see what they thought, but alas, I was foiled. The only reaction logged to this song was a random person who popped in and said (mostly to himself) "This sounds like Zappa" and subsequently left to go back to his desk on the other side of the building.
Overall the album worked out well--better than I expected. The only negative reaction was to Hardware Store... the positive reaction to the parodies, Wanna B Ur Lovr, and Bob outweighed the indifference to everything else. I honestly thought that at some point somebody with no sense of humor would turn it off but it made it through and most people either found it entertaining to varying degrees or were happy enough to hear something different and unique. A few people surprised me with their knowledge of Al... when one person got confused when the polka changed from one song to another, another responded "It's a medley--he does this on all his albums." My manager asked me "Isn't he some sort of mathematical genius or something? He went to a really good school right?" When I told him he was correct, and informed him of the architecture degree, etc etc, he was impressed, and I was surprised he knew that much about him. If anyone here has the same capabilities to conduct the same experiment on another set of subjects, I'd be very interested to see how well it goes.
Adrian
