Al’s MUSIC might not be the FUNNIEST thing, but he’s a damn talented musician, as is his band. I’m not a huge Weird Al fan because he makes me laugh, but because I really enjoy listening to his music. Infact, I haven’t been too fond of most of his parodies on the last couple of albums, but I LOVE LOVE LOVE his original songs, which more than make up for them. Genius in France, Hardware Store, Virus Alert, etc…why does he really need to keep giving away half of his album’s profits to royalties, when he can just keep doing originally penned releases?
However, he does some incredibly funny video work, which I think is where his real comedic genius is. His fake interview with K-Fed has me laughing in tears every time I watch it.
Ray Stevens did do a style parody called “I Need Your Help Barry Manilow,” which can stand alongside any of Weird Al’s. It had the same lush, piano-driven orchestrated arrangement as many a Manilow hit. The lyrics made references to Manilow’s beagle and to such songs as “Mandy,” “Can’t Smile Without You,” and “Weekend In New England.” The album it came from is called “The Feeling’s Not Right Again” and the cover was a knockoff of Manilow’s “Tryin’ To Get the Feeling.”
I thought some of his parodies were quite funny, and most of them were very well done. Now, I may be wrong and might be thinking of any parody, at all, as being Weird Al, given a certain time frame.
Allan Sherman’s were the ones that left me cold. The only one I remember is his parody of Rag Mop, which consisted of spelling Ragg Mopp. His parody was Rat Fink, which consisted of spelling Rat Fink. Ha ha. Maybe he had one that was funny; obviously it tickled somebody’s funnybone.
I think I’d appreciate Allen Sherman’s music much better if it didn’t have all of that canned laughter in it. It’s as if he (or his producer) needed to TELL you when you’re supposed to laugh, like a cheesy sitcom.
And believe it or not, that’s actually Al’s band sounding exactly like Led Zeppelin in the middle of that song. He asked Jimmy Page for permission to insert a sample of “Black Dog” into the song, and Page said, “No, but you’re welcome to play it yourself.”
I did song parodies, he does song parodies… so it’s the same thing.
That’s like saying “I don’t know why LeBron James gets paid to play basketball, when I was 13 my friends and I would play basketball off the garage”. Umm, yeah… but none of the stuff you were making up was anywhere near as clever as White and Nerdy.
I’d never heard of the song being parodied either (although I was aware of the existence of R. Kelly but couldn’t actually name one of his songs), but yeah, Trapped In The Drive-Thru was epically awesome because the subject itself (trying to work out what to have for dinner and all the complications that can arise from something as simple as visiting a drive-through takeaway) is something everyone can relate to and Weird Al made it funny.
So I agree, his work is far more nuanced and accessible than most other parody acts- and after all, if his stuff was so bad, how come he’s been around longer than some of the people he’s parodied?
