World of Weird Al Yankovic

anthontherun @ Jun 30 2005, 05:39 PM wrote: I agree with the writer on PATLC, but I love PFFAR.

Well, I like PATLC because of the Bo Diddly beat, and I had fun doing the hand jive to it for the three concerts I saw on the PH tour. Do you hate it enough to call it dreck, though, anth? I mean, that's kinda harsh.

Look on the brightside....at least the writer actually knows of those songs


Maybe we can use this write up to tell that other guy that Al is alive


(Seriously, what do MJ fans want? He was already succesful...hey, how many parodist-accordionists do you know that are big syndicated radio stars...let alone HAVING A MAJOR LABEL DEAL? And if Eat It didn't push him over the top, Like a Surgeon would've....heck, I Lost on Jeopardy probably would've in the anything goes early 80s.....get over yourselves, MJ fans )

I think the guy is dissing the Offspring (who, BTW, are performing in my 'burg this afternoon!) and Coolio. "Inadvertently self-parodying" is not a good thing to be.

Well, it's not dreck. I save that word for stuff like Prince. But it's not really top-grade Al material to me.

Well, ok. I can accept that. I still like the song. Granted, Al's done better songs, but, I still like it.

But that guy calling PFFAR dreck, that's even worse, because I love that song! And El, I am glad to volunteer to hurt this writer severely.

Driew_La_27 Posted: Jun 30 2005, 05:29 PM  
Here's an interesting article about MJ with a little piece about Al.

From article:

On "Beat It," Eddie Van Halen first attempted to add rock muscle to a Michael Jackson tune -- which is like trying to turn Gumby into a cage fighter.

QUOTE (From article)
But the ability to elicit a few chuckles in the '80s doesn't warrant a decades-long career that's bottomed out in recent years with dreck like "Pretty Fly for a Rabbi" and "Party at the Leper Colony."

I personally really like PATLC. To me it's one clever/funny line right after the other. And I have a nephew-in-law named Stu- (or is that Stew-?) art, which makes it even funnier

I'm not exactly sure how to react to that tired attempt at humor. One wants to believe that this critic (who, not surprisingly, is the paper's music editor) doesn't know his facts, as he's saying that "Eat It" was a mere fifteen years ago (even the most novice of music writers know that the song predated 1990). Yet, he knows enough about Al to know about "Party at the Leper Colony." Now, I don't know about anyone else, but if I feel as strongly negative about an artist as this writer claims to be toward Al, then I certainly am not going to know the basic album tracks off the artist's latest album. I can't imagine this conversation being overheard in the "Scene" offices: "Have you heard that new Weird Al hand-jive song about lepers?"/"Oh yeah! They've been playing that non-parody around the clock on WMMS!"

Ultimately, this piece contradicts "Scene's" general attitude toward Al. Just a year ago the following was written about his Akron concert:

From his nasally accordion rave-up "My Bologna" and the '80s icons-skewering "Eat It" and "Like a Surgeon," to the grunge satire of "Smells Like Nirvana" and chutzpah-laden "Pretty Fly for a Rabbi," he cuts to the root of cultural trends with a quick wit and even faster musical mimeograph.

So, apparently not everyone there agrees that "Rabbi" is "dreck," unless I'm forgetting about an alternate definition that implies "quick wit."

(thwap! thwap! thwap! Had enough yet, Seabiscuit?)

Okay, it's a dead horse and I'm beating it, but you'd think it would occur to Mr. Reviewer that IF Al has had a career lasting decades THEN there's probably more to what he does than producing 15 minutes of chuckles in the '80's.

Okay, time for some more WAY surfing.

It's not one of my all-time favorite songs on Poodle Hat, but if it helps to keep some nurses happy then who am I to object?

Another Poodle Hat review from someone's blog.

From the article OE referenced:

It's not often that MMM makes the top forty, but the recent adaptation of the Avril Lavigne's 'Complicated' by Al Yankovic (who bears a striking resemblance to my older brother Robert)

I wonder if her brother Robert is single...