Weird Al has a new HIT album called "Poodlehat"

What really makes me happy about it is that after his no. 1 debut a week later Marilyn Manson's album is now BELOW Weird Al's. That's fucking awesome.

Artists don't got to cuss to sell self-deprecation
Well I do, so fuck artists and fuck you too

But they appeared at some MTV award show together. Wierd Al came out decked like the Bad Hair Day cover and started doing his mocking of Coolio. Pearl Jam won the award but wasn't there to accept, Al's comment was "Sadly, Eddie Vedder has macrame class tonight and regrets not being able to pick up his award." or something bizarre like that. Coolio almost doubles over laughing, most likely stoned out of his mind, who knows.

I've always said that Weird Al will have a career as long as there are new pre-pubescent boys (and nerds). So far, so true! (I think my well-worn In 3D record is still somewhere in my parents apartment.)

I may have been in NB at the time but didnt he have a song where he rode around on a tricycle reach high up in the charts on MM?

Weird, this struck me as just way too obvious! Not that Al isn't Mr. Obvious Himself, but I guess what I'm saying is that it didn't seem all that far from the *original* Strokes song. Like, maybe doo-wop Lincoln Park would've been funnier, I dunno. Or maybe it's just doo-wop parodies of rock songs are such old hat (Big Daddy having made a whole career out of them, and *Everything New Is Old...Everything Old Is New* being one of the great lost albums of 1982 -- literally, since I haven't been able to find my own copy for years!), that, well, it all covinces me Al should stick to his area of Slavic-rhythm expertise. Or maybe I just missed the accordion during that part.

Out of curiousity, is he using sound effects again? Some of the recent singles I've heard (like that godawful Star Wars one) seemed more like mere karoake. Smells Like Nirvana and earlier stuff (he was a GOD to me in elementary school) featured some great Spike Jonze inspired audio lunacy.

Y'know chuck, I think I've never like ever heard a do-wop reworking of a popular song and for some reason it struck me as particularly appropriate for Last Night.

If you read the lyrics as a parody on Zappa as much as the music is, then the track works like three times as well.

If a man broke into my house, raped and killed my entire family in front of me, and then spent 12 hours putting out ciggerettes on my skin, I would STILL hate him less then I hate Weird Al.

Fucking Poodle Hat. FUCKING POODLE HAT.

And all of humanity as well.

That line is why King of the Hill is the best cartoon ever.

"bobby, al yankovich killed himself in 1987 when people stopped buying his albums."

And then:

And so Poodle Hat goes, as it stumbles over the obviousness and awfulness of its parodies, which have also veered into a new level of stomach-churning vulgarity, whether it's the stinking rubbish on "Trash Day" (Nelly's "Hott in Herre") or the Avril Lavigne parody "A Complicated Song," where the chorus becomes: "Why did you have to make me so constipated?"

Which made me laugh out loud.

First of all, was Weird Al ever supposed to be "ahead of the times" and leading the pack? If so, I can't remember that. What he has made a living out of is something that comes natural to every person I've ever known. He makes goofy lyrics that rhyme with the song's regular lyrics. On top of that, he often sings about pop culture items everyone on earth is familiar with, if not sick to death of. And, he's always sung about kiddie gross-out humor. A song about being constipated isn't too different from a song about living with a hernia or being morbidly obese, is it? He also fails to mention that the "constipated" portion of the song only lasts through the first chorus, after which the song flows into many topics and ends with the subject of the song finally getting decapitated. Maybe the guy didn't listen to the rest of the song. I wouldn't be surprised.

Also, I see how the Strokes, White Stripes, Hives and Kid Rock are different from the super-angry nu metal crowd, but I can also see how they are similar and could easily be lumped into the same general category of "angry white boy" music. Sure, I can clearly see that. I mean, does it literally take songs about kicking people's asses to be considered "angry" or can't it just be songs about being fed up, agitated and discontent? To a personality like Weird Al, I have a feeling he regards them all as the same old angsty shit. I have a feeling this is what really pushed Stephen Thomas Erlewine over the edge. I guess it was okay when Weird Al was making fun of Gangsta's Paradise?

Personally, I thought Weird Al lost it with "Fat", but Poodle Hat has totally got me interested in the guy again. What about "Hardware Store"? This is one of the coolest original songs he ever made, I think. It actually seems like a song I could tap my toe to for a few months, unlike his usual completely not-catchy tunes like "Nature Trail To Hell", for instance.

And finally, I love how Stephen Thomas Erlewine assumes Al stole a joke from the Mind of The Married Man. That punchline is something anyone with a Tivo could come up with. In fact, I believe Howard Stern made the same joke regarding Tivo and Queer As Folk. I bet I would inevitably come up with the same joke if I had a Tivo. Part of Tivo's usefulness is that it picks out other shows it "thinks" you might like based on your previous interests? And guess what? It uses criteria like the word "gay", "comedy", "sci-fi", etc. to define shows with a few short descriptive words.

I think this guy decided he was sick of Weird Al before he even put on the album because everyone I know has cracked up more over "Trash Day" than any other Weird Al song I can ever remember over the years, except maybe "Eat It", but I was about 9 or 10 back then, so I was a pretty cheap laugh.

He really hits the nail on the head when he says Weird Al has no clue about modern music. That, and he's not funny.

It's not like he's ever tried to push the envelope by being on the cutting edge of the music scene, anyway. His place in life has nothing to do with having a clue about modern music, anyway, but he does, regardless.

Scardey Cat = OTFM

Wow, he rhymes words, that's so zany and clever! It's so lame to feel the way I do, but it just seems like he thinks music is so cheezy and stupid -- he has no respect for it. No, of course I don't think people should necessarily have religious-like reverence for music, but humor about music gets its value from how much the person making fun of it understands it. That's why Marcello's amazing post about _Let it Come Down_ was so side-splittingly hilarious, and why Weird Al's schtick is just limp and unsatisfying. His stupid rhyme formula can be applied to any song whatsoever; it's the humor equivalent of: "This new album shows traces of the group expanding their sound while maintaining that which makes them great; recommended for fans and newcomers alike."

Thats why its grebt!

First of all, was Weird Al ever supposed to be "ahead of the times" and leading the pack?

Back when he wrote the best Devo song of all time. Or when he managed to outdo MJ's Beat It, guitar solo and all while singing about food.