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You still do Weird Al Yankovic news, right?

What's your favorite of the eight new Weird Al videos?  Word Crimes
really appeals to me by touching on my biggest grammar pet peeves, but
the swerve he throws on us in the second half of Foil is phenomenal.

Also, please plug Mandatory Fun to the American Blog of Doomers, so
that he may finally get his long deserved number one selling album.


Personally I'm still most fond of "Tacky" because it was the first and remains the biggest ear-worm even if I'm sick of the original song.  "Handy" is also great as a parody ("Who dat / Who screw dat" is genius) but not as inspired as a video.  I love "Mission Statement" because I hear that shit EVERY DAY as serious stuff I'm supposed to follow.  I do wish he'd release all the polka medleys as a greatest hits, though.  
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Comments

  1. Handy is my favorite, even if the video itself is shit.

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  2. As a teacher, my favorite is word crimes.

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  3. TheMainGuyTheBestGuyJuly 22, 2014 at 10:08 AM

    Jackson Park Express is not only the best song on the new album but it's the best song he's ever done. Pure genius. Disappointed there wasn't a video for it.

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  4. Weird Al is one of the most underrated musicians of all time. He's so much more than just a parody guy, he can legit sing, and is great at the little details of music.

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  5. I like how Al ignored the mostly terrible fan base of the new My Little Pony cartoon and did an incredibly entertaining canoe for it. That show is too good to be ruined by it's lunatic fringe.

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  6. davidbonzaisaldanamontgomeryJuly 22, 2014 at 10:23 AM

    Yep, he can pretty much do any genre.

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  7. I watched the Brony documentary on Netflix last night and I've gotta say, it was a little weird but somewhat heartwarming. Something just clicks for those guys with that show the same way something clicks for a lot of us with pro-wrestling. Except they seem insanely happy with their entertainment addiction, where as ours seems to simply fuel our cynicism. Is it possible that ponies extracting magic from friendship is more uplifting than grown men trying to cripple each other in order to wear a belt?

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  8. davidbonzaisaldanamontgomeryJuly 22, 2014 at 10:24 AM

    "The Alternative Polka" off Bad Hair Day is an amazing capsule of 90s music

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  9. I don't know why, but I can't stand it when he does songs "in the style of" rather than as direct parodies. I just listened to "First World Problems" and he does a remarkable job of capturing the Pixies sound, but for some reason I can't stand it. I think I'm bothered by the fact that if I'm getting an original work which sounds like the Pixies, I would rather just get a new song by the Pixies. As it is, there's nothing inherently funny about the sound of the Pixies music. Also, Weird Al's lyrics are funny in the context of how they fit into the pre-established structures; on their own, they seldom hold up. So I just don't know what do to with it. I can't appreciate it as a piece of music because it's a joke. And it's not funny as a joke because it's just a fairly well constructed piece of music with dumb lyrics. I wonder if he tried to get a Pixies song like "Where is My Mind" and was turned down. It's weird, and admittedly fairly awesome, that amidst today's pop hits he decided to acknowledge a great band like the Pixies, but I just have no capacity to appreciate the resulting product, outside of momentarily marveling at how accurate the approximation is.

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  10. I haven't watched the doc but I was more talking about the Rule 34 perpetrators.

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  11. Weird Al has the most ingenious business model ever conceived - make fun of whatever's popular, wait five years for pop culture to change into whatever it becomes, lather, rinse, repeat - but the problem with that system is that if you don't listen to pop music and/or hate whatever new stuff you hear, you're probably going to hate his parodies. I think he's best when he does "style parodies," actually.

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  12. This is my favorite Weird Al song of all time. Great song to begin with, gets the little details perfectly, and does a great job at describing the Spiderman movie. Win all around.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fj7c3vBZ7jA

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  13. I love "Foil" because of the bizarre dark left turn it takes in the second verse. Plus I actually know (and rather like) the original song, which helps. Great video, too.

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  14. The beginning of Handy cracks me up every time. Word Crimes is awesome though.

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  15. That's an exception I'm willing to make. I think that gets a pass because Weird Al and Devo have similar absurd inclinations. For a long time I didn't understand that "Whip It" wasn't a joke song. I can almost appreciate "Dare to be Stupid" as a pure Weird Al creation rather than as a Devo tribute. Also, as a kid I loved "Those Were the Days" so I'll omit judgement on that on as well. Plus, the lyrics themselves worked as a parody of singer-songwriter music while those in "First World Problems" are just those of a bad stand-up routine, totally unrelated to the musical structure employed.

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  16. Oprah NoodlemantraJuly 22, 2014 at 11:04 AM

    Word Crimes always gets stuck in my head, especially the second verse.

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  17. "Word Crimes" is fucking glorious.

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  18. Oh, ha ha, yeah. Hadn't thought of that. In the doc they keep stressing that it's not like that, but I'm thinking there have to be more than a few of those fellas attending the conventions.

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  19. Word Crimes for me.

    And agreed, Vince Jordan, Weird Al is simply awesome.

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  20. South Park does the same thing, no wonder they've both run so long. I think it's amazing how much worse pop becomes, Weird Al is still great.

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  21. The best songs on this album are My Own Eyes, Mission Statement, Word Crimes, Tacky, and of course, the polka medley. Sports Song and First World Problems are the songs I've listened to the least.

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  22. Never thought about that. The weird thing is that I can't STAND South Park after the fifth or sixth season. I recently rewatched the first two seasons and thought "wow, I miss THAT show."

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  23. The style pieces are hit-or-miss, but the parodies are, too. "Dare to Be Stupid" and "Horoscope For Today" are probably my two favorite Al songs from the whole catalog. "Word Crimes" is absolutely amazing too, I'll have to see how it ages for me. I think it's his best parody since "The Saga Begins," at the very least.

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  24. Totally. His band is f'n off the charts too. People forget that they have to play all those styles too.

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  25. The old plumbers dancing in handy cracks me up each time.

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  26. Anyone ever notice that Sting's 1988 entrance music sounds like a knockoff of Weird Al's Stuck in a Closet with Vanna White?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1UgVuDX0KI
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEe3LKI4YUM

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  27. Been listening to Al for over 30 years. I always like his original tunes best for the most part, with Nature Trail To Hell and Albuquerque.

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  28. This is the first time I've ever seen the words "plumbers" and "cracks" in a sentence non-consecutively.

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  29. Hah! I didn't even notice that. Nice!

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  30. Another one you might like (hard to say if you think "bad stand-up routine" is "CNR", which is a BILL BRASKY style list of exaggerations about fringe celebrity Charles Nelson Reilly done in the style of the White Stripes.


    Honestly, most of Weird Al's stuff is amazing, but I have to wonder how he thinks of these things while sober. It's like:

    "I want you to do a ballad to an internal organ in the style of the Beach Boys."
    "CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!"

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  31. His TMBG parody Everything You Know Is Wrong was both a spot-on impersonation and a funny good song in it's own right, I thought.

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  32. If you ever get a chance, go to one of his concerts. He puts on a great show, and it's kid friendly, so you can take the whole family. He moves around quite a bit for someone who's almost 55.

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  33. Why not just get Spotify and put them into a playlist?

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  34. TM CooltrainerBretJuly 22, 2014 at 3:43 PM

    I get the distinct feeling Scott either loves or will love Dilbert.

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  35. Mission Accomplished!

    http://www.showbiz411.com/2014/07/22/charts-weird-al-is-number-1-sells-twice-as-many-cds-as-last-weeks-topper

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  36. I've been enjoying First World Problems and Lame Claim To Fame the most myself.

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  37. Same here. Twister, Genius In France, Your Horoscope For Today, and Pancreas are among my favorite Al originals.

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  38. That's really well done. Done just as well as Angry White Boy Polka or any of the other offical Polka videos.

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  39. YES, thank you for bringing up My Baby's In Love With Eddie Vedder...definitely one of my favorites among Al's originals

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  40. I'm a huge Pearl Jam fan so when I bought Al's Running With Scissors album and checked out the tracklist, I was so excited for that song. And it didn't disappoint.

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  41. I served Weird Al...probably 10 years ago when I worked at Friday's. He was really nice, albeit very quiet.

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  42. He does a cover of Frontalot's First World Problems? Sweet!

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  43. I've seen him live three times. You really stand in awe when you see him. He sings AND raps live just as well as he does on record. I was blown away by White And Nerdy live.

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  44. "Word Crimes" is right up there with "Amish Paradise" and "The Theme From Rocky XIII" as favorite works of mine.

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  45. AverageJoeEverymanJuly 23, 2014 at 6:33 AM

    Junkions love "Dare to be Stupid"

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  46. AverageJoeEverymanJuly 23, 2014 at 6:34 AM

    wow I love the newer seasons way more than the early ones.

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  47. AverageJoeEverymanJuly 23, 2014 at 6:36 AM

    Weird Al's Star Wars I song (The Saga Begins) set to American Pie is incredible.

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  48. davidbonzaisaldanamontgomeryJuly 23, 2014 at 11:41 AM

    The coolest thing is that he wrote it before the movie even came out, he had to rely on fan sites to get plot information. Reportedly he was very ecstatic when he saw an early screening and realized he pretty much nailed the story.

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  49. AverageJoeEverymanJuly 23, 2014 at 1:12 PM

    Oh my my this here Anakin guy . . .

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