World of Weird Al Yankovic

weirdojace wrote:Lady GaGa: I still say we're in for a full fledged parody here. There's no way he can get away without it.

I'd totally agree with you if it wasn't for the VERY notable lack of Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears, NSYNC, and Jay-Z parodies on recent albums. Sometimes huge artists slip by Al, not because he's oblivious to them but because of the timing of their album releases. If Gaga releases an album in 2010, then it would be pretty much definite.

TMBJon wrote:

weirdojace wrote:Lady GaGa: I still say we're in for a full fledged parody here. There's no way he can get away without it.

I'd totally agree with you if it wasn't for the VERY notable lack of Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears, NSYNC, and Jay-Z parodies on recent albums. Sometimes huge artists slip by Al, not because he's oblivious to them but because of the timing of their album releases. If Gaga releases an album in 2010, then it would be pretty much definite.

Jon, Jace, dynaboyj, you're all so right...I agree with every point youg uys raised in your most recent posts...and I never said "Poker Face" should be a full-length polka song either, but apparently someone on Dr. Demnto has already done it by now...and as to the "huge artists that slipped by Al" that jace mentioned, that may not be due to the timing of their respective releases as much as maybe that Al didn't have a good enough idea to sustain a full lentgh parody. SOL faetured parodies and polka renditions of songs that seemed to have reached their commercial/radio rotation peaks in 2004. Timing of certain albums may not be such a pressing concern to Al. Hey, he did mention a "HairyBack" as a stupid throwaway idea for a parody in a certain Rolling Stone interview, plus he "interviewed" him and his former beard, so I wouldn't say JT and Britney completely slipped by Al (commercially and musically, yes...but maybe not creatively.)

Speaking of female artists, he certainly covers a his fair share of them in the polkas, but he is getting older and his voice does seem to be going slightly (if the way he preformed "Rabbi" on the SOL tour medely is any indication.) He doesn't seem to be albe to reach some of those higher notes like he used to, so maybe he'll shy away from doing parodies of tunes by female singers on the next few albums unless he has a certain idea for a song that would fit so perfectly well with said songs that he feels it would be worth it to lower the register considerably (as the case seemed to be with "A Complicated Song.") Gaga seems to have more range as a vocalist, so there's a possibility that this couldn't be an issue if he really wanted to do a full length parody of "Paparazzi" or "Bad Romance".

caseyk27 wrote:his former beard

If Justin Timberlake is gay, he's sure doing a great job of hiding it from himself.

dynaboyj wrote:I think that a bunch of national superhits like Boom Boom Pow, Poker Face, Fireflies (would that count?), and even Tik Tok could go into the polka

#FeelingOld

Dave

Female parodies being out of Al's range has never been an issue. If he can't sing it, he just changes the key. Examples: Like a Surgeon, Eat It, A Complicated Song, etc...

Jon raised a good point about Britney and Justin slipping by Al, but I really do think Gaga will have a parody. It's too good to pass up and I think Al knows it. Imagine a music video or a concert with Al wearing some outrageous Gaga-like outfit. She's right there just asking for it.

Timing isn't much of an issue, like it was said, SOL had a parody of American Idiot, which peaked in 2004. And need I remind everybody about "eBay"?

weirdojace wrote:Timing isn't much of an issue, like it was said, SOL had a parody of American Idiot, which peaked in 2004. And need I remind everybody about "eBay"?

And really, if Al does pick "Bad Romance," "LaGa's" most recent and seemingly most internationally successful hit, that still only came out around November...not that outdated at all.

Good points, both. I will say this: I've been thinking about it, and I'd predict we are going to get one parody released just before this upcoming tour. In that case, Gaga would be a perfect target and I hope he does. She is certainly the most ubiquitous artist going right now. I think the new online release system allows Al to release a song now to tour with, which would be a really cool way for him to use it. If WYL was the test run, here's where he can put it into practice.

weirdojace wrote:Female parodies being out of Al's range has never been an issue. If he can't sing it, he just changes the key. Examples: Like a Surgeon, Eat It, A Complicated Song, etc...

yeah, but one of those was a MALE parody...hell, it seems like he only left the key unchanged on about every third or fourth parody back in the '80s regardless to the gender of the original singer...since UHF came out in 1989, he has only recorded and officially released TWO parodies of songs by female artists...counting concert only songs, he has witten four in that time...he only changed the key on TWO of those...I guess you're still right about female artists having higher vocal ranges than him not being an issue...the REAL issue is still whether or not Al has a strong enough concept for a full length parody...he has said in numerous interviews that finding his next big hit is a challenge seing as he has to wait for the next big hit or pop culture phenomenon AND the right idea for a song (that can't be worked into an original composition)or the perfect thing that would match the lyrics.

Al mentioned he had about two dozen or so different ideas for "Complicated" but none of them could conceivably stretch to a full lentgh song, so he picked his three funniest ideas and wrote three unrelated verses around them. Possibly the main reason Al hasn't parodied any top female acts on SOL is because he didn't have a good concept for one of their songs and all the reallgood ideas for songs ended up getting matched with male top 40 acts. He did mention in a certain Rolling Stone interview that after "Pitiful" was forcibly removed from the album, he touched on "IRS" for Rhiannas' "SOS" and "Hollodeck Girl" for Gwen Stefani's "Hollaback Girl". I could imagine him doing "SOS" in the same key that Rhianna did, but he would most liekly have to lower the key to Miss Stefain's tune. Obviously, the thing that killed these two songs was that he couldn't get the concepts off the ground.

meanwhile, on twitter...

@alyankovic 10:57 AM January 30, 2010 wrote:Oh man... I wish I could play you the 2 new songs we just finished mixing… but you’ll just have to wait for the album!

hmm...sorry, Jon...it looke like we got to hear all the songs Al was going to pre-release on the "Leaks" EP and these new ones (be they praodies or originals or whatever) will be released with the full album (whenever that may be, hopefully this year some time...) however, you do seem to have a point...Al knows that parodies of hot new songs are the only thing the general pulbic cares about him releasing, so if the next song Al works on is indeed to be a parody of a current hit (or even a polka medley of a dozen or so of them)than he might just be slightly more inclined to release that as just a standalone single (seperate from the EP) if for no other reaosn than to have something fresh to preform on the this year's tour (Al has said he doesn't like to write songs on the road, so something tells me if the doesn't record any new parodies before May or June, than he will probably perform a bit of it in the medley just to tease us and the release it with the full album after the tour)

Also, the WYL "experiment" was a bit of a flop, IIRC. However, AL simply attributed that to only having it on iTunes and nowhere else for the first two weeks after it's release as well as not having an acompanying music video of any kind coupled with a lack of any promotion. He did say however that he didn't want songs to sit around and get dated by the time the full album is released. My best guess is that if Al has a great idea for another parody of a song that is currently number one on the Bilboard charts, he may want to release another parody single before the tour just to see how it goes. Rest assured, this will most likely be the lead track to the next album and will be accompanied with a big budegt live action music video. Thus, Al and his record label will give it sort of the same treatment that he gave "Craigslist", "CNR" and "Ringtone" prior to thier respective releases and the release of the entire EP.

I'm still waiting for a Bon Jovi parody

Has al gone on tour before he releases an album before? Cuz I would think the point of going on a tour would be to promote the newest cd but this tour is starting up pretty soon and there's no sign of an upcomming album