I was just wondering who here likes Weird Al Yankovic? If you don’t know who he is, check out www.weirdal.com, and if you don’t know what he looks like check out the picture below…
alboy.bmp (29.3 KB)
Here that is in JPG:
i do. i bought his DVD a couple of weeks ago.
he’s very talented.
people just think of him as ‘funny’ but he has a great talent for matching other’s voices as well.
I watched a biography special on him, about how dedicated he was and stuff, a very smart guy
Yeah, Weird Al is cool. He’d make a good unicyclist. So would Johnny Depp, I think he actually went to a circus ‘school’ thing once.
im a huge weird al fan, i know the words to almost all of his songs
-grant
I’m a big fan and by big fan I really mean I think he sucks. Taking other peoples songs and changing them from beat it to eat it is not talent, its hardly funny.
If you want some comedy go watch Kids Show.
I really like the “Off the deep end” album. I got some of the others but I haven’t really been paying attension lately.
Getting new lyrics to fit with both music and the original lyrics does (IMHO) require talent. That said, I didn’t like that song either.
Yeah Amish Paradise is the best.
I do
I own almost all his albums (only missing Poodle Hat), mostly on cassette tape. From ages 9-12 he was literally all I ever listened to. My favorites are his polka compilations. I think I’ve posted about this before, but I once recorded all his polka songs on a tape to make one long 45 minute song.
Here’s a list of the albums I could find:
on tape:
“Weird Al” Yankovic (self-titled)
Polka Party
Dare to be Stupid
In 3-D
Even Worse
Greatest Hits
Greatest Hits Volume II
Alapalooza
Off the Deep End
The Food Album
on CD:
The TV album
UHF Soundtrack
Bad Hair Day
Running with Scissors
I also have two video collections somewhere. Man I was obsessed. Re-writing the lyrics to existing songs might take some talent, but whats really impressive is when he writes original songs “in the style of” a certain band, like “Mr. Popeil” after the B52’s, “Dare to be Stupid” after DEVO, or “Dog Eat Dog” after the Talking Heads. I remember seeing on VH1 maybe, Mark Motherbaugh from DEVO saying something like, “Weird Al did DEVO better than DEVO could do DEVO, and I’ll always hate him for that.”
I’m a big fan of his polkas and a few other songs, but his last two albums seemed a bit flat. Bad Hair Day was good though.
thats wack! its much more than that. its a freakin society Homes.
oh boy, yet another crass cartoon…
It doesn’t take talent to make lyrics that are perfect with the original music? Well, let’s see you do it.
James,
I did that once, back when I was 12, it was a play off of greenday’s ‘she’ a friend and I wrote a new song called Pee about you guessed it urination. Replacing words to some songs can be difficult to make them flow correctly, but i stand to say that it doesnt take much talent. That inlies in the original artist who is making the song sound good in the first place. Because lets face it if its not a pop song that at least some people already know than weird al probably isnt going to touch it. The hard part of putting original material out that people will like is already done.
Jag,
Check out Kids Show its hardly a cartoon its a parody of a typical childrens show. Now you may be saying how is a parody any different than the covers that weird al does? This is where I will eat my words, and say that its really all just personal preferance. I like polka and some stuff Mr. Al has done (Uhf) but I dont find the majority of it funny or entertaining. Especially when he stops being creative and just does the same shit over and over each album. If its your beef to like it I’m cool with that I just choose to waste my time watching other pointless crap.
Mike aka ELChexsterino
It’s definitely not the same as creating from scratch, and it can be done anywhere from very badly to extremely well.
In some of Weird Al’s songs he does it extremely, extremely well. he pays homage to the hit songs he parodies. His versions could not exist were it not for the success of the originals. That is part of the whole picture. If you didn’t know the original song, his parody might not make sense. Or it might not seem funny.
His earlier work was not very impressive to me. The Eat It video, for example, was much more impressive than the song itself, following the original almost shot for shot.
My favorite has to be the Pentium song. Not only is it fun to listen to, you can see he’s done his homework and knows what he’s talking about. The same is true for Pretty Fly for a Rabbi.
But when it comes to regular music, I’m with Checkernuts in that I want to see people writing new stuff, not just rehashing old hits, or using a rhythm machine to put a poem to. I haven’t noticed a lot of creativity lately in the pop music genre, at least where I’ve been listening. Lots of covers. Sure covers are successful, they’re built on successful songs (like Weird Al’s). But when are you going to write your own?
Weird Al is in a niche category, where he is one of the best. Though he creates some of his songs, and some of his music, I don’t think that is what he will be remembered for.
THE BIGGEST WEIRD AL FAN I KNOW:
Tom Miller. The one from The Unicycle Factory. He has a half a banana in his freezer. It’s black and gross, but Weird Al took a bite from it and then tossed it into the audience at one of his concerts. I wonder if Tom still has that? Ew.
I’m a Weird Al fan. I have some of his stuff on CD. I havnt listened to them in a while, but I think i’ll have to dig them out. Trev (unicycleboy) got me into Weird Al! 
Joe,