Wow… I’d love to listen to the full length songs in polka style. Thrift Shop especially.
I’m surprised at how many of them I recognise.
I could quibble about some of the claimed howlers in “Word Crimes” (less/fewer, literal) but there’s bigger game:
If you’re trying to make a point about how poor language choice affects people’s perceptions of you, and you unironically use the word “spastic” as an insult, you have seriously fucked up.
The problem is that the UK is different to the US in terms of that being acceptable language.
Wikipedia has a fair bit on it, with explanation of UK usage, US usage and times when it has become problematic:
Not for Americans you haven’t. And since Weird Al is an American, this complaint rates a “meh.”
Interesting. I take it back then, as Weird Al clearly was writing for a specific audience.
I still think a lot of what he complains about is mere stylistics - and may well be appropriate for its intended audience.
Here’s a post to Language Log, whose posters are mostly professors of linguistics, where they criticize the statements in “Word Crimes”:
I thought the video was moderately amusing. But I did like that Al was dressed as Schneider from One Day at a Time.
Wow! That person is pretty humor-impaired. I also like the complaint that the general public uses the word grammar differently than cunning linguists. No kidding! Who would have thought that a term of art in a subject specialty would have a different meaning than how it’s used by the general public. I mean, evolution is just a theory, right? Who can tell what a rational person would do, you know?
I think one of the dancing handy men was supposed to be Mario.
wow… Handy is one of the very few times that the original is so awful that even Al can’t improve it. Bleccch. I think I’ll be skipping that one a lot when I get the album. (yeah, I realize my old fogeyness is showing. get off of my lawn, and take your iggy azalea with you!)
That post is awful.
The video I saw was pretty low quality (wtg Yahoo!) so when I first saw them I thought they could be Penn & Teller!
Here’s today’s. It’s an original song called “Sports Song” and it’s a march/fight song about how our team is great and your team sucks.
As a sports fan who is all about true rivalries (Cleveland don’t like no one), I found it hilarious! I’m not sure if non-sports-fans will like it, or if you’ll like it because it points out the absurdity of sports cheering.
Enjoy!
"Second, a little rumination on Weird Al’s violent reactions against “bad grammar” raises deep and longstanding questions of social equity regarding class, education, race, age, ethnicity, gender, and how these relate to languages, dialects, and social registers. "
Wow, what a pretentious windbag! It’s a HUMOR song, “moran”. What a way to miss the entire point. :rolleyes:
Weird Al did say that Tom Lehrer was an early influence.
That drummer over Al’s left shoulder seems a little old for a high school marching band. Is he one of the members in Al’s regular band?
I thought it was Seth McFarlane but I couldn’t figure out who the taller, mustachioed guy was. But yeah looks like his band is in the band.
The twist in Foil is smart because the original premise isn’t interesting enough to carry the whole song. Handy and Sports Song aren’t the best song on the album, but I like that the Handy video captures that low-budget local commercial feel. I did buy the album the other day and I thought the best tracks were Tacky, Word Crimes and Jackson Park Express.
I think that “Seth MacFarlane” is’s Ruben Valtierra, Al’s usual keyboardist. Maybe? or is it Jon “Bermuda” Schwartz, the drummer?
When all of the first four of the eight planned videos were parodies, I thought he was was going to go ahead and release all five parodies first- I thought we’d see “Inactive” today followed by three originals to wrap it all up.
Maybe the plan was to open big* with the parodies but then save one parody to close on. So, we might get two more originals for the weekend then “Inactive” on Monday. I don’t think “Inactive” will be a strong closer unless the video is really awesome.
*“open big with the parodies” in terms of mass appeal. The hardcore fans are always just as or more excited about the original songs.
Yeah, I had a couple cringes in that song, but nothing to the degree the Language Log commentator did. Though I did learn something about UK English and the term “spaz/spastic” today. I had no idea.