Important Al Interviews/reviews.

[ludovica64]

Ugh... what a repellant little dweeb

[Wizzerkat]

New York Times!

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/12/arts/ ... lypse.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[crazygurl14]

I just clicked on it and when it opened the first thing to catch my eye is the creepy picture after the one of him on the railroad tracks lol.... think i may have nightmares lol


Its a real good article though lol

[Jigawatt]

Hey, I remember those train tracks.

Great article!

[Kevbo1987]

That is a really excellent article. It's very well-written and well-reported, and it looks like the reporter actually bothered to do some background research before writing it. Thank God we didn't have to endure yet another mention of how Lady Gaga "just granted" Al permission to include "Poker Face" in the polka medley he recorded more than a year ago and has since been performing at every show.

[Orthography Enthusiast]

I only wish this had come out before our latest submission to the Walk of Fame. It makes a great case for Al as an artist worth taking seriously.

[weird_el]

In case the above link doesn't work for those who don't subscribe to NYT. I know they charge now.

June 9, 2011
Serving Pop Stars, but on a Skewer
By DAVE ITZKOFF

ENGLEWOOD, N.J.

WHEN your strangeness is the first thing you want people to know about yourself, as Weird Al Yankovic has advertised in his stage name for more than 30 years, you should expect strange things to happen at your concerts.

When you play here at the Bergen Performing Arts Center, as Mr. Yankovic, the accordion-wielding pop-music parodist, did on a Saturday in May, you should take it in stride when a grown-up female admirer asks you afterward to sign her pink stuffed-toy poodle, then bursts into tears when you grant her request.

When you want to end with a set of “Star Wars”-themed songs, you can expect that a battalion of local fans will join you onstage in Darth Vader and storm trooper costumes, asking for no more compensation than your handshake and a slice of pizza.

And when your computer servers crash midway through your show, just as you and your band are about to play your sendup of the treacly James Blunt love ballad “You’re Beautiful” (which you, of course, call “You’re Pitiful”), you’d better have a cover of “Radio Radio” by Elvis Costello and the Attractions ready to go in its place.

Following a concert in which he had dressed as various characters including a long-bearded rapper (for “Amish Paradise,” his take on the Coolio song “Gangsta’s Paradise”) and a giant peacock (for “Perform This Way,” his notorious parody of Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way”), Mr. Yankovic said his straight-faced cover of “Radio Radio” was an improvised solution to a technical glitch.

“It’s my old D.J. training,” explained Mr. Yankovic, who is about to put out his first new album in five years. “I panic when things are dead onstage.”

But that ad hoc moment neatly illustrated how Mr. Yankovic, at 51, has carved out a career in the ephemeral field of novelty music by preparing for the unpredictable undulations of the zeitgeist. Even when things don’t go quite as expected, Mr. Yankovic said, he can rely on the “pop-culture Cuisinart” that is his overstimulated, media-saturated brain.

“I just feed it as much input as possible,” he added, “and mix it all up and see what comes out.”

On June 21 Mr. Yankovic will release “Alpocalypse” (Volcano Entertainment/Jive Records) his 13th full-length studio album and his first since “Straight Outta Lynwood” in 2006. In that time he has continued to tour relentlessly, on the strength of musical pastiches and original numbers that have sold him millions of records, won him three Grammy awards and earned him a fan base of college-age ironists, middle-age parents and their children.

Though his act has not changed much over that period, rich in references to low-culture detritus and proud of its nerdiness, his bona fides remain strong, particularly among entertainers who have embraced their own geek status.

Andy Samberg, the “Saturday Night Live” star and member of the humorous pop group the Lonely Island, said of Mr. Yankovic: “In the genre of comedy music, he is the end all, be all.” Brett Ratner, the filmmaker and music-video director, said with awe that Mr. Yankovic was “a real artist,” adding, “Even if he wasn’t Weird Al Yankovic, he would still be a brilliant performer and musician.”

Over the last 5 years, or even the past 15, Mr. Yankovic, who lives in Los Angeles, hardly seems to have aged much. He is married and has an 8-year-old daughter, but in conversation in his austere dressing room, he came across as a gangly, giggly guy with a flowing mop of curly brown hair and a cultural appetite that is all over the menu.

“I like having gangsta rap and zydeco on the same album,” he said. “It works for me.”

Reflecting that eclectic sensibility, “Alpocalypse” is a grab bag of musical lampoons, parodying Miley Cyrus (whose “Party in the U.S.A.” becomes “Party in the C.I.A.”), the White Stripes (whose blues-rock style is cribbed for a Charles Nelson Reilly tribute called “CNR”) and T.I. (though in Mr. Yankovic’s economy-minded version of that rapper’s “Whatever You Like,” he offers his sweetheart “dinner wherever you please/Like Burger King or Mickey D’s”).

It is the album’s leadoff single, “Perform This Way,” that has already garnered the most attention, largely because of Mr. Yankovic’s public and uncharacteristically pointed response when he was first told by Lady Gaga’s representatives that they would not give him permission to include it on “Alpocalypse.”

In a post published April 20 on his personal blog, Mr. Yankovic recounted his lengthy back-and-forth with Lady Gaga’s management over “Perform This Way,” in which he mocks that protean pop star for her outrageous couture. (Sample lyrics: “I strap prime rib to my feet/Cover myself with raw meat/I’ll bet you’ve never seen a skirt steak worn this way.”)

After submitting a short description of the song’s conceit to team Gaga for its approval, Mr. Yankovic was told he needed to send his complete parody lyrics, which he hurriedly wrote during an Australian tour; he then cut short a family vacation to produce the song when he was told to supply a finished track.

When his efforts resulted in rejection, Mr. Yankovic was evidently, if entertainingly, peeved. “It’s not like there were any surprises in the finished song that she couldn’t have foreseen by, you know, READING THE LYRICS,” he wrote on his blog.

But with the help of Mr. Yankovic’s two million Twitter followers his tale of frustration ricocheted around the Internet and throughout the news media, and by the end of that day he updated his blog to say that Lady Gaga had given the song her blessing — and that an unnamed manager had never actually forwarded it to the singer for her approval.

Mr. Yankovic seemed somewhat chagrined by this incident one month later and said any causticity in his blog post came from fear that his work on “Perform This Way” would be wasted.

“My brain was going, ‘Noooo, this has to happen,’ ” he said, his voice raising an octave or two. “ ‘It’s meant to be, I don’t understand. It’s predestined.’ ”

(A publicist for Lady Gaga declined to comment for this article, but the singer told Rolling Stone magazine in May that she appreciated “the philosophy behind” his version and found it “very empowering.”)

Though he suspects his parodies would be protected under fair-use rules, Mr. Yankovic said he seeks permission for them partly out of respect for fellow musicians, partly to avoid lawsuits and partly to work out royalty arrangements. (Mr. Yankovic said the original artists retain their publishing rights on his parodies, while he splits songwriting credit with them.)

Some performers say they are flattered to have their songs parodied by Mr. Yankovic. Jason Geter, a manager who represents T.I., said he and that rapper were stunned that the same musician who in the 1980s turned Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” into “Eat It” and “Bad” into “Fat” wanted to do a version of “Whatever You Like.”

“This dude did Michael Jackson, and now he’s asking to do you?” Mr. Geter said. “For sure, it was definitely a validation and a certification you have a real hit.”

And Mr. Yankovic has sometimes used rejection to his advantage. When Atlantic Records would not let him include “You’re Pitiful” on “Straight Outta Lynwood,” he instead recorded “White & Nerdy,” a geek-culture parody of Chamillionaire’s rap hit “Ridin’ ” that became his first-ever Top 10 single.

But in an increasingly fragmented recording industry, Mr. Yankovic said, it was too risky to put out a new album without a parody of a high-profile pop hit to help promote it. Though some of the tracks for “Alpocalypse” were previously released online in 2008 and 2009, and a batch of new songs was finished in November, Mr. Yankovic said, he waited several months until “Born This Way” strutted onto the catwalk.

“I can never tell my label, ‘Oh, my album’s going to be out in the fall or in the summer,’ ” he said. With a rapid-fire chuckle, he added, “The album’s going to be out whenever there’s a dramatic shift in the pop culture — whenever that happens to be.”

The novelty-music genre has seen its own significant transitions: the era when performers like Allan Sherman or Ray Stevens could have their songs played on mainstream radio stations and sell millions of records, and Bob Newhart could win the Grammy Award for album of the year, is long gone.

And while Internet sites like YouTube have given aspiring parodists more power than ever to circulate their music, Dr. Demento, the novelty-music connoisseur and broadcasting alter ego of Barret Hansen, said, “In terms of someone who’s consistently making money at it, Al is pretty much it.”

That Mr. Yankovic has lasted as long as he has and continues to have a thriving career, Dr. Demento said, was the result of “inspiration and perspiration.” He added: “He just works like a dog. He’s the biggest workaholic in the field, with the single exception of the late Frank Zappa.”

As he prepares for the release of “Alpocalypse,” Mr. Yankovic was focused on more practical and less philosophical concerns: trying to keep a lid on details about his video for “Perform This Way,” and hoping that “Party in the C.I.A.,” with its references to waterboarding and targeted assassinations, won’t be construed as a commentary on how Ms. Cyrus’s original song became an unofficial anthem after the death of Osama bin Laden. (“It’s a little eerie,” Mr. Yankovic said of his parody. “I hope people won’t consider the song in bad taste.”)

But when he is not dressing up for his concerts as a Jedi knight or a morbidly obese gang member, Mr. Yankovic has reflected on whether, after three decades, the term novelty musician still applies to him.

“It implies here today, gone tomorrow,” he said. “But by definition, any time you’re doing humor in music, it is novelty, because it’s unexpected.”

He thought about the question for another moment, and as a grin spread across his face, he added with mock sincerity: “I prefer alternative. I am the original alternative artist.”

[ludovica64]

That is a really excellent article. It's very well-written and well-reported, and it looks like the reporter actually bothered to do some background research before writing it. Thank God we didn't have to endure yet another mention of how Lady Gaga "just granted" Al permission to include "Poker Face" in the polka medley he recorded more than a year ago and has since been performing at every show.

David Itzkoff who wrote the article is someone I have been following since the Gaga Saga. It was he (along with Stephen Thompson) who initially broke the news that all was OK and the parody would go ahead

He also has an accompanying video to the article http://nyti.ms/jXRLKE

[crazygurl14]

I love how they show pictures that I am assuming will be in the cd booklet but they go by so fast you cant really see them. But they look fun. And that interviewer is so polite and formal.... Mr. Yankovic lol

[weird_el]

Everybody in the NYTimes gets an honorific title. Meat Loaf is called Mr Loaf there
It was news when they dropped the honorific title for Osama Bin Laden immediately after he died.