World of Weird Al Yankovic

Sappho wrote:
I'm not at all surprised that Al tweeted what he did. I never got the sense that he truly held a grudge against Prince, despite joking about it all the time.

This.

I've always felt the only reason Al "went to war" with Prince was simply the fact that Prince was the one artist that he could get away with it with. He was such a strange, quirky guy that everyone had their Prince jokes and stories and Al was just another voice in the shuffle. It would be a lot different case if he treated Paul McCartney the same way for saying no to Chicken Pot Pie.

What happened wasn't just "another celebrity dying." This was (another) loss of a human life. Coincidentally, the man happened to be famous.

I knew who Prince was most of my life, about as long as I've known (about) Al. I can barely count all the Prince songs I know on one hand, and I'm ashamed to admit I've never seen a single music video of his in full (but I am soon to fix that).
I know barely a thing about Prince other than Al-related "jerk with no sense of humor" gossip, jabs and stories that I hope by now are things of complete irrelevance, in regards to acknowledging him (whether as an artist or as a person). I can't legitimately call myself a Prince fan (yet).

Even so-- I also can't put into words how shattered I've felt all day ever since seeing the headline on my phone this morning.

Although he and Al had their major, major differences, they both had the same seriousness, passion and dedication to their work.
Their approaches were polar opposites, but their skills of music-making were on equal grounds. (Prince is not repeatedly referred to as 'legendary' by accident.)


My heart has always held respect for Prince, and now holds much sadness of missing him.
No matter who Prince was -- sense of humor/no sense of humor, eccentric/not eccentric, a "jerk", whatever -- what a loss of a unique, undeniably talented soul.

Like any celebrity who I'm not a big fan of, I didn't really have a strong emotional reaction in either direction, although I can't deny that I was really intrigued and constantly refreshing when I read there was a death at Paisley Park. The weird thing is, though, I would say my knowledge and interest in Prince is almost directly comparable with David Bowie--I've always respected their talent, own a greatest hits album by each, really enjoy a handful of songs but have never had any desire to dig deeper into their catalogs--but when Bowie died, I fell into that usual response of wanting to listen to his music...but I don't really have that same feeling with Prince.

I'm oddly feeling much more sad about Patton Oswalt's wife's death than Prince's.

I don't think that's odd at all.

Even if you didn't know her or her career, Patton's talked about her and their daughter so much on his albums that you feel like you know them.

Prince went out of his way to be mysterious and to make sure people didn't know who he really was.

Never heard much Prince music, I listened to a little bit after him passing, not that great. I don't get too sad about celeb deaths, but I did feel sad about Robin Williams. But him allowing or not allowing Al to parody him wouldn't make me any more or less sad. Al wouldn't and doesn't think that way and I doubt he would want anyone to be glad about someone dying for a reason like that. Just like the James Blunt or lady gaga stuff, better things came along with the rejection. James Blunts record company saying no gave us White and Nerdy, the Lady Gaga gave Al lots more attention for the Album.

Now, if Al dies(which he NEVER WILL) I will be destroyed and devastated

And with Patton's Wife, I'm pretty sure they were close friends of Al so he would understandably be more upset. I didn't know the guy was married but I'm sad for them

Teh Dingo wrote:I don't think that's odd at all.

Even if you didn't know her or her career, Patton's talked about her and their daughter so much on his albums that you feel like you know them.

Thanks, that's pretty much part of how I feel about her. Yesterday afternoon after I found out, I went into my iTunes library and listened to a bunch of tracks of his standup where he talked about her, just as a way of mourning.

Just got my tickets for Al's Hollywood Bowl concert in July. Occurred to me: if he performs "Word Crimes", what's he going to do with that lyric about Prince writing like a 7-year old? Probably falls in the "too soon" category. Might we get an alternate version of the song? (I hope he doesn't scrap it altogether.)

He didn't change anything about SLN after Kurt Cobain shot himself. No reason to change anything now.