On one hand, I don’t think anybody took “Weird Al” Yankovic
\nseriously after 1997. On the other hand, since it’s Weird Al, that
\nreally doesn’t matter.<\/p>\n
Most people of my generation were first exposed to Al when
\n“Amish Paradise” came out, and many of liked the irreverent lyrics
\nset to songs we knew and liked. So when
\nRunning With Scissors<\/i> came out, we eagerly picked it up and
\nhoped for the best.<\/p>\n
The problem is, Al and his band perfectly recreate the original
\nsongs and lavish production on the originals, meaning the pop
\nculture references in the songs and the songs themselves are
\nalready outdated. It’s good to hear parodies of Nine Inch Nails,
\nDon McLean (sounds like a burger), Barenaked Ladies, and TLC, but
\nthose bands were popular in the early 90’s (except McLean), and
\nthis came out in 1999.<\/p>\n
Any Weird Al album divides into originals and covers. Here, the
\noriginals far outweigh the covers, with “Germs,” “My Baby’s in Love
\nwith Eddie Vedder” and “Albuquerque” nicely fitting into the
\nYankovic canon. The latter song is a 12-minute jumble that’s only
\nfor fans of Frank Zappa or art-rock, but if you have the patience
\nand like this sort of humor, it’s hilarious.<\/p>\n
Of the covers, “Grapefruit Diet” does justice to swing, “It’s
\nAll About the Pentiums” takes the pretension out of gangsta rap and
\n“Jerry Springer” keeps pace with the Barenaked Ladies “One Week.”
\nDated music and dated references, but fun all the same.<\/p>\n
I tended to get bored listening to “The Saga Begins,” because
\nthere is no way to improve “American Pie” after it was played
\n830,500 times a week on classic rock radio. Some of the tracks near
\nthe end tended to meander a bit, almost as if Weird Al was trying
\ntoo hard, but his ubiquitous polka pastiche, in this case
\n“Alternative Polka,” is one of the most entertaining songs
\nhere.<\/p>\n
Obviously, this is not quality entertainment, but it’s fun, and
\nwhile it may not have the staying power of some of Al’s earlier
\nsongs, it’s one of the strongest entries in his library. But don’t
\nbe surprised if you don’t get some of the musical or cultural
\nreferences.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":27066,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6172],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-38396","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-weird-al-yankovic","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38396\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38396"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}