POLL: "Weird Al" Yankovic in 3-D

As much as I love the B-52's pastiche of "Mr. Popeil" (a case of only connecting those dots a few years ago, because I had no idea who the B-52's were in 1984), I have to go with "I Lost on Jeopardy" because that Don Pardo section is branded on my brain.

Buy Me A Condo and Rye or the Kaiser get stuck in my head the most often, but I'm voting for Midnight Star. I just love the melody and lyrics so much.

"Nature Trail to Hell" is basically the title track. I remember holding my breath for the entire decay of that final piano note. "Midnight Star" set me up for disappointment when the tabloids (in New England supermarkets, at least) got progressively tamer and more celebrity oriented. If I'd seen any of the Rocky movies when I was six years old, maybe I could have voted for "Theme From Rocky XIII (The Rye or the Kaiser)" but I had to go with "Nature Trail" on instinct.

the last couple minutes of Nature Trail are almost TOO intense

Shd just do a weird al poll

Shd just do a weird al poll

ever since Weird Al's parents died in a tragic carbon monoxide poisoning accident, I've had trouble not immediately thinking about his parents dying in a tragic carbon monoxide poisoning accident and how weirdly fucking abrupt and terrible and random that would be for him, or anyone, but specifically him the literal master of musical random, the kind of weird, a dude who has been verified as a bonafide Good Guy by multiple sources multiple times, every single time he enters my consciousness.

which is why it ruled so hard to see this show up in my youtubes with zero context two months ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0QbbnIYa0M

"I Lost on Jeopardy"

when we were kids we heard the Weird Al song and then one day on the way home from flag football, the Greg Kihn song came on and we started laughing only to be disappointed

close second "Rye or the Kaiser"

Think I'll go for "The Brady Bunch." I always ignored the verses about the show in question, which I had never seen; not having a track listing on my copy, a Certron 90 with glitter glued on the outer shell, I didn't even notice the Brady content until years later. The more fundamental subject — T-V — is a catalyst for (I assumed) sibling rivalry and, more fundamentally, a hypnotic mind-control medium much smarter than you, as the elegant orientalist synth riff intimated. There was giddy delight in getting caught in the tractor beam glissandos at the end of the song. It was cool to be rendered so completely mindless (in the spirit of those CONSERVE ENERGY: SLEEP IN CLASS t-shirts of the era).

"Condo" low key informed my opinion of condominiums well into my adulthood.

I think “Midnight Star” might be the strongest Al original in terms of songcraft and arrangement and he probably could have been an 80s college radio star even if he wasn’t funny

Yeah that seems right but I voted sentimentally for Nature Trail To Hell as the first song I really “felt” (as a 12 year old boy interested in horror). my gateway to music.

Al's originals are better than people tend to give him credit for. "Frank's 2000" TV" from Alapalooza is just a perfect power pop song, a cleaner jangle and a more innocently optimistic lyric than the source material (REM?).

I think “Midnight Star” might be the strongest Al original in terms of songcraft and arrangement and he probably could have been an 80s college radio star even if he wasn’t funny

― The Mandymoorian (Whiney G. Weingarten), Sunday, June 21, 2020 1:54 AM (ten hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I feel this way about "Don't Wear Those Shoes"

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

so difficult. my faves have changed over the years, sometimes based on a single lyrical phrase that jumps out that i didn't really notice before. going with jeopardy.

love the fact that lisa popeil sings backup with him to this day. hasn't he kept the same band basically this whole time?

"Frank's 2000" TV" from Alapalooza is just a perfect power pop song, a cleaner jangle and a more innocently optimistic lyric than the source material (REM?).

I saw a young dance troupe dance to this song three years after the album came out. they were embarrassed because they were dancing to a song about a 2000 inch tv.

great song.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

You're a complete looooooserrrrrr

I LOST ON JEOPARDY
BABY

"King of Suede" deserved at least a vote or two.

James Holzhauer changing his Twitter avatar to Weird Al in the "I Lost on Jeopardy" video after his reign ended was pretty funny