Welcome to another Top Ten Things, here at Enuffa.com!
Today I'll be talking about a musical legend. And a comedy legend. And a certified genius (Seriously, he skipped second grade and was senior year valedictorian at sixteen).
Weird Al Yankovic burst into the American lexicon in 1984 with an off-beat parody of a Michael Jackson hit, and has somehow managed to build a hugely successful thirty-plus-year career lampooning our most cherished pop music stars. As an eight-year-old Michael Jackson fanatic I was initially offended that anyone would parody one of his songs, but Al won me over when I first saw the video for "Eat It." Here was a dorky, bespectacled nerd mimicking all of Jackson's dance moves (badly I might add) and conjuring comedy from already-tired rock video imagery. By age twelve I'd bought all of Al's records, and I've been a huge fan ever since. In 2000 I got to see Al from the front row, and he even yelled at me for not singing along to "Dare to Be Stupid." It was indeed a privilege. Twenty-two years later I took my son to see his Ill-Advised Vanity Tour, a proud inter-generational moment.
Despite originating as a zany novelty act on comedy radio, Weird Al's career has endured a staggering four decades. For many artists, being parodied by Al is a badge of honor, a sign that they've truly "made it." Al is like a pop culture mirror, making light of our society's latest fads and popular music heroes. While he seems to be all done putting out full albums, he still pops up every so often with a new video to remind us he's still out there, ready to either lampoon or pay homage to whatever's grabbing headlines.
Here now Weird Al Yankovic's albums, ranked....
14. Polka Party!
It should come as no surprise that the album which nearly derailed Al's career ranks last. Without the benefit of a strong single to help move sales ("Livin' With a Hernia" is a fun James Brown parody but didn't exactly light up the charts the way "Eat It" or "Like a Surgeon" did), Polka Party! would need to overachieve as a cohesive album. Sadly it did not; the album's parodies tackled mostly less-than-memorable material, while its originals were largely pretty pedestrian. The Talking Heads-inspired "Dog Eat Dog" and the Phil Spector-style "Christmas at Ground Zero" serve as a pair of standouts, but beyond those, Polka Party! lacks a strong catalogue of original tunes to make up for the rather uninspired slate of parodies. Thankfully Al's career would resurge in a big way two years later with the release of Even Worse.
Key Tracks: Livin' With a Hernia, Dog Eat Dog, Christmas at Ground Zero
13. Alapalooza
Cashing in on both the mammoth success of Jurassic Park and the alternative music tour Lollapalooza, Al's 8th album dropped in 1993 and didn't quite make the splash its predecessor Off the Deep End did. It probably didn't help that the lead single was a parody of an old 1960s tune rather than a hot 1993 alternative chart-topper (though Al's "Jurassic Park" song is pretty great). Al did send up the Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Give It Away" and "Under the Bridge," with mixed results (RHCP bassist Flea expressed disappointment in Al's choice of The Flintstones as the song's inspiration), and Aerosmith's "Livin' on the Edge," returning to the subject of food, in this case the kind that's been in the fridge too long. The original songs on this album were a letdown for me, aside from the excellent REM-esque "Frank's 2000" TV." To my mind "Traffic Jam," "Waffle King" and "She Never Told Me She Was a Mine" sounded like outtakes from previous albums. But Alapalooza does finish strong with "Bohemian Polka," a sped-up, accordion-driven version of Queen's megahit "Bohemian Rhapsody." Overall though, Alapalooza is one of his weakest efforts, and the worst of his 1990s output.
Key Tracks: Jurassic Park, Frank's 2000" TV, Bohemian Polka
12. Straight Outta Lynwood
Notable for boasting Al's highest-charting single "White & Nerdy" (a parody of "Ridin" by Chamillionaire), Al's 12th album was from a commercial standpoint another career highlight. Other parodies include "Canadian Idiot," based of course on Green Day's "American Idiot," "Confessions Part III," a sendup of Usher's "Confessions Part II," and the epic "Trapped in the Drive Thru" based on R. Kelly's "Trapped in the Closet." The originals on this album are quite varied, with "Pancreas" parodying the style of The Beach Boys, "I'll Sue Ya" capturing the sound of Rage Against the Machine, and probably the strongest original "Don't Download This Song" going after 1980s all-star charity tunes like "We Are the World." Overall SOL is ambitious and sonically diverse, but not all of it landed for me. Still it was satisfying to see Al achieve such mainstream success once again.
Key Tracks: White & Nerdy, Pancreas, Don't Download This Song
11. Bad Hair Day
Falling just shy of the top ten is Al's 1996 return to prominence after the critical and commercial disappointment of Alapalooza. The ninth album in Al's catalog surged to double-platinum status largely on the back of "Amish Paradise," a parody of Coolio's "Gangsta's Paradise." Coolio infamously disapproved of Al using his song as comedy fodder and publicly objected, though Al did get written permission from Coolio's management to use the song. This was ironic considering the Coolio tune is itself a reworking of Stevie Wonder's "Pastime Paradise." Aside from the hit single, Bad Hair Day boasts an excellent parody of Presidents of the USA's "Lump," about Forrest Gump, some standout originals such as "Everything You Know is Wrong" the a cappella "Since You've Been Gone," and "The Night Santa Went Crazy," and maybe his best-ever polka medley, "The Alternative Polka," which makes use of numerous mid-90s grunge and alternative hits. Bad Hair Day is a bit uneven but contains enough standout tunes to almost make the vaunted top ten.
Key Tracks: Amish Paradise, The Alternative Polka, Gump
10. UHF - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack and Other Stuff
The soundtrack to Al's 1989 summer flop sadly didn't fare much better than its film counterpart, but it did contain some fun parodies and solid originals, plus a few snippets of the film itself. Al's spoof of Dire Straits' "Money for Nothing," which is essentially the
Beverly Hillbillies theme set to different music, was accompanied by an excellent sendup of the Straits video. Other highlights were "Spam," based on REM's "Stand," and two hilarious originals, "Generic Blues," which literally just recycles all the woe-is-me blues lyrical tropes, and folk-rock epic "The Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota," which recounts in great detail a trip to go see the World's Largest Twine Ball (Yes, such a thing actually exists). Released at a time when a) the summer movie season was quite cluttered (
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Batman, Star Trek V, and
Lethal Weapon 2), and b) Weird Al's record sales were somewhat contingent on including a Michael Jackson parody, this album and film kinda got lost in the shuffle (though
UHF has since become a cult classic). But it's not too shabby at all and shows evidence of Al's growth as a musician.
Key Tracks: Generic Blues, Spam, The Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota
9. Dare to Be Stupid
Al's third album, and the first musical comedy album to see a CD release, showed that Al was growing beyond his reputation as "that funny guy who does the Michael Jackson parody." With songs like "Like a Surgeon," "I Want a New Duck," and the superb "Yoda" (based on The Kinks' "Lola"), Al was attempting to last beyond the fifteen-minute lifespan most gave him. But it's in the original songs where this album really achieves. Style parodies like the hilariously descriptive doo-wop ballad "One More Minute" and the Devo-inspired title track demonstrated Al's gift for recreating different genres (Devo frontman Mark Mothersbaugh once said that "Dare to Be Stupid" captured the exact sound he himself had been trying to create).
Key Tracks: Dare to Be Stupid, One More Minute, Yoda
