World of Weird Al Yankovic

Thanks for the award.

Gotta Boogie

Dave

Oh, man, I spent all day without thinking about this at all.

Fine, I'll just vote for GJWHL. Just a gut feeling.

And it's usually a "gut feeling" that makes girls wanna have lunch in the first place!

GJWHL

Girls Just Wanna Have Lunch

With less than three hours to go, the vote tally stands at 14 - 7. "Girls" is currently doubling "Boogie"'s count.

As I said before, I will keep the voting open longer if the margin narrows to five or less. Right now it's seven, so we'll see what happens...

So how much does the original tune factor in to these votes.

Like, say you like the music of the original song but not Al's lyrical take on it? Is this a factor for people?

Not A Weird Al Fan @ February 04, 2009 03:05 am wrote: So how much does the original tune factor in to these votes.

Like, say you like the music of the original song but not Al's lyrical take on it? Is this a factor for people?

When rating parodies, the original tune is only slightly important. I actually think "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" and "Misery," for example are excellent songs! Both of them are better than many original songs that Al has parodied, in which the parody turned out much better than these two. For example, "Stand" and "You Got It (The Right Stuff)" are rather lame songs. But their parodies are far better than either "Lunch" or "Syndicated."

I think what it comes down to for me is how much Al ADDS to the original song. With most songs, he takes a good tune and improves upon it by making it funny. Sometimes, like with "Wild Thing," he takes a pretty boring or weak song (IMO) and makes it MUCH MUCH better. However, in some cases like with GJWtHL and SI, he takes a great song and falls well below the bar in his parody of it.

So, basically, if the original is much BETTER than Al's version, then Al's parody deserves to be in a "Worst Song" countdown.

Bruce the Duck @ February 04, 2009 11:42 am wrote: When rating parodies, the original tune is only slightly important. I actually think "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" and "Misery," for example are excellent songs! Both of them are better than many original songs that Al has parodied, in which the parody turned out much better than these two. For example, "Stand" and "You Got It (The Right Stuff)" are rather lame songs. But their parodies are far better than either "Lunch" or "Syndicated."

I think what it comes down to for me is how much Al ADDS to the original song. With most songs, he takes a good tune and improves upon it by making it funny. Sometimes, like with "Wild Thing," he takes a pretty boring or weak song (IMO) and makes it MUCH MUCH better. However, in some cases like with GJWtHL and SI, he takes a great song and falls well below the bar in his parody of it.

So, basically, if the original is much BETTER than Al's version, then Al's parody deserves to be in a "Worst Song" countdown.

Great post. very interesting! I hadn't thought of it in exactly that way before.
Cant say it completely works for me in the case of all songs , but its an interesting angle.

For me I think that for parodies it doesnt matter too much what the original is as long as what Al brings to it makes me smile... or dance. I mean I HATE T.I 's WYL but I LOVE Al's and I hate "Lose Yourself" but love "Couch Potato"; hate "Gangster's Paradise" and love "Amish Paradise" and "It's all about the Benjamins" isnt even on my radar, but "It's all about the Pentiums" is my favourite song. End of.
However.... I have to admit to preferring "Lola" to the album version of "Yoda" although the live version of "Yoda" totally reverses that and there are a few other tracks where I prefer the original to Al's version, eg Girl's Just Wanna Have Fun...but in a lot of cases I like both and tbh there is only one song of Al's I truly dislike and will skip every single time.. and thats "Fat" which as far as I am concerned is just awfully unfunny on every level, although the video is totally awesome of course.