Music Blogs

Aside from its selection and speed, I think the thing I love most about this digital revolution is that “Weird Al” Yankovic can now parody the latest hits almost as fast as they blaze up the charts.
 

 

Last Tuesday, Al coughed up “Whatever You Like,” his tongue-in-cheek take on the hot-as-hell T.I. track of the same title, which was issued as a single in July and leapt from #71 to the Billboard penthouse in a single bound in September and kept residence until a follow-up, “Live Your Life,” kicked it to #2 this week.
 
For the first time in his career, Al was able to strike during a song’s real-time popularity. “Big thanks go out to T.I. and his manager for their support,” he scribbled in his Myspace blog. “Not only was he nice enough to give me his permission and blessing for this parody, but he responded so quickly that I was able to make everything happen insanely fast. In less than a two-week period — seriously — I was able to come up with an idea for the song, get legal permission for the song, record the song, mix the song, master the song, upload the song to my label, and deliver the song to iTunes. Talk about instant gratification!”
 
This development probably reminds him of his DIY days in ’79, when the then-Cal Poly San Luis Obispo architecture student hauled his accordion into a men’s room to drop “My Bologna,” a send-up of the new Knack track, “My Sharona.” Al sent the tape to buddy Dr. Demento, who played it on the air to enthusiastic response. Among its fans where The Knack themselves. The following year Al recorded “Another One Rides The Bus” live on Demento’s show while its inspiration, Queen’s “Another One Bites The Dust,” was still on the charts.
 
But all that changed when he became a recording artist. The parodies that peppered his self-titled 1983 debut — which, unlike later efforts, didn’t attempt to mimic the original songs’ production; it was just man and accordion, wheezing away — were often responses to a hit parade more than two years past. For example, Al recorded Joan Jett knock-off “I Love Rocky Road” about a month after Jett’s “I Love Rock And Roll” was released; Yankovic’s version wouldn’t arrive for another year. The tightest gap between original and satire was his play on Toni Basil’s “Mickey” (“Ricky,” performed from Lucy Ricardo’s perspective); only seven months separated the singles.

 
I have fond memories of the year he broke big. The man in the tropical button-downs and frizzy-curled bean-top over bespectacled, mustachioed arch became part of my unbalanced diet with "Weird Al” Yankovic In 3-D (1984), featuring “Eat It,” a playful dig at the previous year’s biggest cultural phenomenon, Michael Jackson. The accompanying video’s a near-shot-for-shot reproduction of the gloved one’s “Beat It” — just with rubber chickens, Three Stooges-style street gang tomfoolery, and a smoking guitar ribbing Eddie Van Halen’s original, frenetic solo.
 

 
The track I loved most, though, was “I Lost On Jeopardy,” whose protagonist’s failure is far less dramatic than the heartbreak of The Greg Kihn Band’s “Jeopardy.” If I recall, this predated the Alex Trebek revival, so its video’s set was modeled on the Art Fleming incarnation. Yank sweats through categories so impossible that one answer even appears in a different language. At the end, announcer Don Pardo taunts him with a list of prizes he didn’t win, adding: “But that’s not all! You also made yourself look like a jerk in front of millions of people! And you brought shame and disgrace on your family name for generations to come! You don’t get to come back tomorrow! You don’t even get a lousy copy of our home game! You’re a complete loser!” Al’s ejected from the studio into a waiting convertible driven by that good sport Greg Kihn, signaling his complicity with a wink.

As I got older, my fandom waned. After all, I was becoming an adult. After “Like A Surgeon” (Madonna) and “I Want A New Duck” (Huey Lewis & The News), I pretty much gave up on Al and began indulging in Serious Music. Sometimes a stray shot caught my attention (“Gump,” “Money For Nothing/Beverly Hillbillies”), and while I was impressed by his longevity — most of the pop styles he’d lampooned were long gone, and he’d adapted to newer forms — I didn’t think “Weird Al” had anything to offer anymore. Like a fool, I’d gone Jackie Paper on a man who’d brought me so many hours of joy.
 

 

 
 
Then, out of curiosity, I picked up Poodle Hat in 2003 and found myself giddily giggling again. He’d lost the frizz, the mustache, and the glasses, but he was still “Weird Al.” The kiddo within couldn’t resist the many rhymes in his Avril Lavigne “Complicated” takeoff (one’s exactly what you think it is), the adult enjoyed the palindromes of “Bob,” and the music nut appreciated the structure of the Beck/Prince knock “Wanna Be Ur Lovr” and the Zappa bouquet of “Genius In France.”
 

 
His 2006 follow-up, Straight Outta Lynwood, is even better. It contains his first Top 10 hit, “White & Nerdy” (a friendly poke at Chamillionaire/Krazy Bone’s “Ridin’”), and a 10-minute-plus play on R. Kelly’s “Trapped In The Closet” that finds a man and his lady trying desperately to order fast food in a drive-thru, even though neither are that hungry. That this mundane story is given such surging orchestral heft, and never gets boring, is a testament to Yankovic’s artistry. Yeah, I said it. Novelty acts come and go; if you’re still around and relevant after 25 years, you’re an artist.
 
So forgive me, Al. I shan’t stray again. Now I’m off to download your song, even though you explicitly told me not to.