Hangin' 27 - Al Surfing

[algonacchick]

Wow, well, that's something you don't see/hear every day. Thanks for sharing, tomatoachives!

[TMBJon]

Here's something....interesting.


Youtube

Seems about right!

[Wizzerkat]

Wall Street Journal's top music moments of the year. Al ranks high!

http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2014/12/ ... s-of-2014/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[anthontherun]

Al was quite taken with The Lego Movie.

[anthontherun]

Splitsider analyzes and ranks each polka. Much like the similar 11 Points list, I don't really agree with the actual ranking but it's a cool read. And at least this one doesn't say that Al fans "widely agree" that "Polka Your Eyes Out" is "the pinnacle of the polka medleys."

[Big Spoon]

Saw that yesterday. Yeah, I really disagree with a lot of the rankings. Still a really fun read though. And a good way to kill a little time.

[algonacchick]

As far as that Splitsider article goes, this guy mentions a drum machine when he talks about the breakdown portion of any given polka medley. Has this guy ever seen Al in concert? Also, first he says polka music is Eastern European while explaining what it is, but then he says this, which really bugs me:

And you know what polka is, right? Traditional Eastern European style of music featuring accordion, tubas doing an oom-pah beat, maybe a few trumpets doing a sort of Slavic version of salsa? Usually performed by a bunch of Polish guys in their 50s who all shout "hey!" to punctuate the end of a chorus? Point is that polka is VERY square sounding, so when you do a polka version of a pop song it sounds funny. Okay, now you're caught up.

Really? A bunch of Polish guys in their 50s? This is what he says regarding the Polka Face medley:

Polka highlight: Getting a snippet of an actual polka by the unrelated but revered-in-Polish-neighborhoods-everywhere Frankie Yankovic in the mix.

Frankie was America's Polka King, which means people of all nationalities knew who he was. I know I did. Also, he was Slavic. Another point he made as far as the polka highlight was that this may be the only polka medley with a song by Frankie Yankovic in it. Not sure if that's true, but an interesting point. Anyway, it was an interesting read, even with some wrong info in there.

[mellow weasel]

Really? A bunch of Polish guys in their 50s?

I have no idea what place in music culture polka occupies in USA, but here polka is almost exclusively old people's music. 50 is a too young, the average polka fan would be around 60-70

[mellow weasel]

Have you seen this? ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic Proudly Accepts The Honor Of UPROXX’s Person Of The Year
His acceptance video was funny, the part about "mammal of the year" cracked me up . In the article they mistakenly call MF an independent album ...

[algonacchick]

Really? A bunch of Polish guys in their 50s?

I have no idea what place in music culture polka occupies in USA, but here polka is almost exclusively old people's music. 50 is a too young, the average polka fan would be around 60-70

I grew up hearing polka music, having some German ancestry. I saw live bands play polka music when I was in my pre-teens. The Clarinet Polka is probably one of the most recognizable polka songs, at least for me. I think I even learned to play it in band class. Al has used it in several polka medleys. I had also heard the Too Fat Polka long before Al used it to start off his current polka medley. I get what you're saying about how old the people that listen to it might be, though. Not a whole lot of young people listen to it, unless their parents introduced it to them, like mine did. As far as how old the people playing polka music are, pigeon-holing them as being 50-something and Polish seems unfair. Polka music is not limited to Poland. Not sure why people seem to think that. Okay, I'm done.