This is the one that got all the mainstream media attention, due to the highly exaggerated “feud” between Al and Coolio over Amish Paradise. The fact remains that Coolio’s record label gave Al’s record label permission without actually asking Coolio themselves, and Coolio was actually upset with the situation, but not Al personally. He would have said no to the parody being made, because (like Michael Jackson and Snack All Night) he felt that the message in his song was too serious to be taken lightly, but he still gave him approval to perform the song on his tour, and wished Al the best of luck with his song and career. Of course, the media made it out to sound like a turf war between artists, and that Coolio was out for Al’s blood, and Al STILL gets asked about this during interviews. All of this attention helped Amish Paradise to be one of Al’s biggest singles ever, and it is STILL one of his most popular songs. I never really understood why - it was funny the first time, but the song itself is pretty boring, musically, and the live version doesn’t improve its charisma much either.
BTW, nobody seems to remember that Al & Coolio actually presented an award TOGETHER at the American Music Awards that year (Pearl Jam’s Vitology won for best Hard Rock album, which Al accepted because the band was on tour at the time)
As for the rest of the album…it’s one of Al’s better albums, but it’s so hit or miss that I couldn’t call it a masterpiece. There’s one parody that’s even MORE boring than Amish Paradise, and Al was about 2 years late with Gump. That leaves Cavity Search, which is a decent song, and Phony Calls, which has its moments. There’s a pretty strong set of originals on this album, including one of Al’s best ever style parodies.
Rejects from this album include Gee I’m A Nerd (Free As A Bird) because John Lennon’s wife is a bitch, Laundry Day (Come Out And Play by the Offspring) for the same reasoning as Amish except that the band actually discussed it with Al in advance and told him to go ahead and do another song (which he would do on the next album), Theme From Home Improvement (I’ll Be There For You) because ABC & NBC couldn’t play nicely with the licensing (and Al wrote that song thinking that it was about a professional plumber/handyman, rather than a TV host, so it sounded like The Plumbing Song part 2), and the Buddy Holly polka, because Weezer was getting sick of that song’s overexposure (when you first installed Windows 95, it would play that music video, seriously!) - the latter was finally posted on weirdal.com about a year ago, and the others were performed on the Bad Hair Tour. Also, The Night Santa Went Crazy had an alternate final verse, where Santa got shot and killed instead of arrested, which was released as a single as The Extra Gory Version (which, to date, has my favorite album art ever).
- Loser, Sex Type Thing, All I Wanna Do, Closer, Bang & Blame, You Oughta Know, Bullet With Butterfly Wings, (Buddy Holly), My Friends, I’ll Stick Around, Black Hole Sun, Basket Case