Parody bands are the best, bar none, at what they do. They have to play such a wide array of styles, and they have an energy not found in other mediums of music. Only wedding bands can rival them for proficiency, tightness, and endurance. And as far as parody bands go, Weird Al Yankovic commands the best one.Weird Al has a pretty good gig. The ebb and flow of trends in the music world is crazy and unpredictable, and every standard artist runs the risk of becoming not relevant at the drop of a hat. Weird Al, on the other hand, rides on the coattails of the current trend, whatever that may happen to be. He will always be popular because the entire point of his music is to do a version of what is already popular. It’s really kind of ingenious.
His latest album, Straight Outta Lynwood, is his tightest, most cutting, most relevant album to date. Like only Weird Al can, he sweetly skewers the MP3 craze, hip-hoperas, American nationalism/superiority, and ridiculous litigation. Since the mid-nineties, he has been kind of hit or miss, and he’s fallen into an alternating good album/bad album pattern since Off the Deep End. Running With Scissors was pretty smart and witty, but Bad Hair Day and Poodle Hat were a little on the kitschy and esoteric side. Though as the years go by and he has tried more and more things, he constantly comes up with new ways to attack the parody animal. Even so, he remains the same on a few things, like his polka medleys. Straight Outta Lynwood contains his 9th one, and the trend has not lost even a tiny bit of its irony or hilarity. “Polkarama!,” the latest entry into his polka catalog, successfully skewers/pays tribute to Weezer, the Killers, Snoop Dogg, Franz Ferdinand, Kanye West, the Black Eyed Peas and more. The opening track, “White & Nerdy,” is the best, though. It pokes fun at a section of society that revels in its ridiculousness, and wears it like a badge of honor: geeks. Parodies of nerds and nerd life are always well-received and embraced by nerds. All the things Weird Al mentions are elements of geek-world that geeks enjoy about themselves. As a player of Dungeons & Dragons, I must admit I got a charge out of the “Got skills, I’m a champion at D&D” line. I gladly admit that I’m a geek, and “White & Nerdy” celebrates the stuff I love about that distinction.
The rest of the album is nothing to sneeze at, either. “Canadian Idiot” is more than just the logical extension of Green Day’s “American Idiot.” It’s a commentary on a relevant social issue as well as being entertaining, like a good comic book. I’m amazed at Weird Al’s band’s ability to adapt itself to any style under the sun with such precision and accuracy, as “Close But No Cigar” (style parody of Cake) and “I’ll Sue Ya” (style parody of Rage Against the Machine) demonstrate. “Weasel Stomping Day” is an example of Weird Al’s twisted sense of humor, and “Don’t Download This Song” is a deliciously ironic statement about internet “pirates,” as well as artist “rights.” Then there’s “Trapped In the Drive-Thru,” a note-perfect parody of R-Kelly’s uber-epic “Trapped In the Closet.” The actual “Closet” clocks in at 42 minutes, and goes from a standard tale of infidelity to completely ridiculous situations over the span of its twelve parts, and doesn’t have even a shred of a sliver of a point. “Drive-Thru” is similarly pointless, or maybe the point of it is that it is pointless. It’s funny, but too long for me to actually listen to.
Hopefully, Weird Al is actually immortal, so he can go on making fun of music trends as long as there are trends to be made fun of. He is a vitally important presence is the music world, as he teaches us to not take ourselves completely seriously. Many artists have learned this lesson, and see a parody of one of their songs or their style by Weird Al as a high honor. As for those who haven’t, they just illustrate the point that Weird Al has been making all along.
White & Nerdy
Close But No Cigar
I’ll Sue Ya
Polkarama!
No comments:
Post a Comment