Re: The Weird Al Yankovic Appreciation Thread
 

Both these songs are great. Al's still got it.

Re: The Weird Al Yankovic Appreciation Thread
 

Bought the cd (last copy eeek :)) from Best Buy last night while I was waiting to pick up a game (which ended up not being there but that's another story). Good stuff, Tacky and Word Crimes are easily the best. And the best part was introducing my fiancee to Weird Al. Ahhhh, young people these days...but at least she was enjoying it.

Re: The Weird Al Yankovic Appreciation Thread
 

I don't think it was expensive. I have a feeling those are friends of Al that did it for little or nothing. It probably didn't cost more than a typical SNL digital short.

Re: The Weird Al Yankovic Appreciation Thread
 

Yeah, given he apparently had no budget to work with I would assume so as well.

Got my copy yesterday and went through most of it last night. It's really something to be musically relevant for over 30 years. I think Inactive is my favorite song, but that could change.

Most of his albums have at least one song that just doesn't work for me, in this case it's Sports Song.

Re: The Weird Al Yankovic Appreciation Thread
 

I think "Inactive" is one of the better songs. Perfect job reproducing the original and spot on lyrics. The video could babe done as a sequel to "Fat" for the new binge watchign generation.

Re: The Weird Al Yankovic Appreciation Thread
 

Holy crap, "Jackson Park Express" may be the funniest thing he's ever written. It's also completely inappropriate.

Re: The Weird Al Yankovic Appreciation Thread
 

For those of you craving another live-action video:

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Re: The Weird Al Yankovic Appreciation Thread
 

I can't say I like that one as much, either.

Re: The Weird Al Yankovic Appreciation Thread
 

I liked it. Good stuff. Thanks Adam.

Re: The Weird Al Yankovic Appreciation Thread
 

How young is she?


Between Word Crimes and Tacky the former is the better song in my opinion. However, both of the original songs drive me crazy and listening to their parodies doesn't help much.

Re: The Weird Al Yankovic Appreciation Thread
 

I was wondering her age also. Al's been at it for a very long time.

Re: The Weird Al Yankovic Appreciation Thread
 

I didn't care much for Tacky on first listen... The video wasn't as good either. I'll listen to it more when I pick up the album.

Word Crimes has been my favorite song so far and the video is awesome.
Foil is a well done song and the video for it is great.

Nice to see he's still got it and keeps on going. I wonder if the newer artists he parodies still see it as a kind of badge of honor when Weird Al parodies one of their songs.. I thought I recalled that earlier in his career the artists would see it as a good thing when he did, for the most part.

Re: The Weird Al Yankovic Appreciation Thread
 

Foil is the first one so far where I feel like the video really helps out the song. Not that it's the best video, but the one where the video improved upon 'just the song' the most. On previous listens I thought the track was pretty disjointed... the schitzo nature of the two verses felt too random. The odd thing is I think if he had included a third verse with yet another type of foil I wouldn't have felt this way. But the video helps bridge the two sections as a story... I like that there is a context to the whole thing now.

Re: The Weird Al Yankovic Appreciation Thread
 

I didn't realize that was Aisha Tyler in the Tacky video. She looked different.

Also, who is the girl in the elevator in that?

Re: The Weird Al Yankovic Appreciation Thread
 

kristen schaal - i have a strange attraction to her

Re: The Weird Al Yankovic Appreciation Thread
 

At least it's not just me. :lol:

Re: The Weird Al Yankovic Appreciation Thread
 

So thus far we've got 3 video's and they're all parodies. I think it's safe to say that we'll get the other 2 parodies as well. That means at least 2 (and probably 3, unless they do a video for the polka medley) originals. Anyone care to venture guesses as to which ones we'll get? I think I'll go with "Lame Claim to Fame", "First World Problems" and "Jackson Park Express"

Re: The Weird Al Yankovic Appreciation Thread
 

She has a new show on Hulu (Hotwives of Orlando), I was amazed at the number of fans she has these days :lol:

Re: The Weird Al Yankovic Appreciation Thread
 

I am still amazed that Nirvana agreed to have him parody "Smells Like Teen Spirit." It was a great video and I heard Curt really liked it.

Re: The Weird Al Yankovic Appreciation Thread
 

Kurt Cobain actually frequently cited it as the moment when he knew he really made it.

There's kind of a funny little story about how it went when Al asked him for permission.

Al was friends with Victoria Jackson (because of UHF) and he called her up when Nirvana playing SNL and asked her to give the phone to Kurt.

Kurt came on, and Al asked for permission to parody "Smells Like Teen Spirit"

Kurt's immediate response was "Is it about food?"

And Al replied "No, actually it's about how nobody can understand your lyrics."

To which Kurt said "Oh... Cool."

End of conversation.

Re: The Weird Al Yankovic Appreciation Thread
 

I don't think I ever heard the whole story. Pretty cool of Kurt. Can't believe I spelled his name wrong. Man, I'm on a roll lately.

Re: The Weird Al Yankovic Appreciation Thread
 

I bought "In 3-D" on tape when it came out. That's how old I am. Listening to "Nature Trail to Hell" on my Walkman while mowing my parent's lawn. OG Al Fan represent.

Re: The Weird Al Yankovic Appreciation Thread
 

I may be remembering wrong, but I thought that I recall reading/hearing that the only person that didn't like Weird Al parodying his song was Coolio......

I know that Al doesn't really need to ask permission to parody a song as its covered in some way with laws around copyrights or something.. but that he likes to ask and receive permission first before he does. I can't recall if Coolio flat out refused or later agreed and Al did Gangsters Paradise (which is one of his top songs for me).

Re: The Weird Al Yankovic Appreciation Thread
 

That was the "low point" in Al's Behind the Music - because that's probably the worst thing that has ever happened to him. :lol:

The basic story is that Al was told he had permission by Coolio's rep so he went ahead, Coolio denied it after the song released, now Coolio says it was a misunderstanding (probably because he looks like a gigantic tool) and they are fine now.

Re: The Weird Al Yankovic Appreciation Thread
 

Al got some form of agreement from Coolio's people before he did the song. Then after it came out Coolio got all offended, I guess no one brought it to him directly. One comment Al made during the whole episode was that despite his problem with the song, Coolio never failed to cash a royalty check.

They've since worked things out and are cool.