Why “Weird Al” Matters

In 1979, I was at a Christmas party and Donna Summer’s latest hit, “On the Radio”, was being played. She had a long string of hits like a lot of artists I liked. Then a switch went off and music changed in 1980 for the baby boom generation. There would still be moments we could identify with; Michael Jackson, who I had been following since 1969, became the world’s biggest star, The Beach Boys and Chicago would each have #1 singles in 1988. But artists were now appealing to people 20 years younger than me. While I could somehow see myself hanging out with The Beatles, Rolling Stones and Beach Boys, the way my parent’s generation fantasized doing with Frank Sinatra, there was no way Prince or Madonna would ever acknowledge me in any dream. There would be one new artist around this time, a Baby Boomer himself, who we could still support.

In 1981 I heard of “Weird Al” Yankovic. He was 21 and he had a parody of Queen’s super-serious “Another One Bites the Dust” with “Another One Rides the Bus.” It was just him and his accordion with a drummer. For a New Yorker, who took the train and bus, this song was my life. I had always liked parody or “gimmick” records and that music gave us countless one hit wonders. Their songs were immortalized on Dr. Demento’s Radio Show and it’s where Al got his start, sending tapes to him in the 1970s. I remember blurting out the lyrics to “Another One Rides the Bus” at work, nobody had heard it and everyone laughed. I remember Al came out with his first self-titled album in 1983. Al was good at making videos too and his parody of Joan Jett with “I Love Rocky Road” and taking Tony Basil’s “Hey Mickey” and making it into a Lucy-themed, “Hey Ricky” was shown on MTV.

Of course Al broke through in 1984. His parody of super-serious Michael Jackson’s hit “Eat It” was funny, silly and amazing for the talent of recreating the original video. Al got Michael to approve this satire and to this day it’s unforgettable. The Greg Kihn’s Band song, “Our Love’s In Jeopardy” was made into “I Lost on Jeopardy” and a video had host Art Fleming and, the voice of the show, Don Pardo capturing the satire as Al had done previously. You knew that Al had some credibility, and was taking his time to get it right if he had Art Fleming and Don Pardo in the video. You’ve heard Madonna gave her blessing to her classic and let him sing “Like A Surgeon” which had a cameo of her in it. It was all good, and, with the exception of Prince, everyone got it and it was fun for all ages! Sometimes Al would also record new songs or take a style of group as he did in his Devo-inspired “Dare to Be Stupid.” I was very proud that in the mid 1980s that someone I enjoyed was so popular. Al was not having a string of top ten hits the way Donna Summer did. But if the song got onto the Billboard Top 100 singles chart or the Billboard Top 200 album chart and was played a bit on the radio or was seen on MTV or other video music stations, it was a success! I began to ask people; are you a Weird Al fan? Those that were I realized I had a lot in common with and those that didn’t probably had “different values” than me. For the record, my wife Carla is a big Weird Al fan.

Weird Al was back in 1986 with “Polka Party” album. Al usually has one polka-type medley of current hits on his albums. The single “Living With A Hernia” was a great take-off of James Brown’s “Living in America.” With the set from the classic Rocky video, with a showgirl coming out for the fight-inspired scene with a sign that read” verse 2” and Weird Al listing different hernias the way James Brown shouted out different cities, I liked it. But it wasn’t as successful as his other top parodies, nor was his Robert Palmer inspired, “Addicted to Spuds” a success. If Weird Al’s time had ended, he would have made his mark as probably the most successful parody artist of all-time.

But Weird Al’s time would continue and continue. I knew that for sure on August 20, 1987 when Carla and I saw Weird Al open for The Monkees at the Pier on the West Side of Manhattan. On a gorgeous night for a concert in a venue that made too much sense to open for future big-name concerts, Weird Al opened with “Like A Surgeon”and closed with “Living With A Hernia” and told everyone to enjoy his closing act The Monkees. After each song, Al would rip off his costume and his new costume would be appropriate for the next song. In his Elvis-inspired, “One More Minute” he went into the audience, gave people a handkerchief with his sweat on it and his “security guard” had a jacket that said “Al” instead of Elvis. It was one of the best concerts I’ve ever seen. The Monkees; Davy, Mickey and Peter, without Michael, were in year two of their reunion. During “Listed to the Band” someone appeared with a green hat. Had Michael Nesmith rejoined the group for this? No it was Weird Al. It was very funny. In 1988, Al would parody Michael Jackson with “Fat,” which might be too politically incorrect now. It won a Grammy. Al was dressed up like Michael on the “Even Worse” album as Michael looked on his “Bad” album. One song, “Melanie” wouldn’t seem funny today because Al commits suicide over the girl not liking him but sings, “I may be dead but I still love you.” Sometimes Al was a little rough with animal though he loved his Harvey the Wonder Hamster. MTV and later VH-1 would let Al do several hours of Al TV. It was usually very funny. Al showed up with other stars in the Michael Jackson video for “Nigerian Girl.” The man was a star.

Carla and I were at a movie theater in Manhattan the weekend in July 1989 when Al’s UHF opened. We loved it. A very funny movie about how an underdog station beat out the ruthless #1 station in the market. In addition to Al, it featured Michael Richards before he joined the cast of Seinfeld as Kramer. There was a great parody of Dire Straits’ “Money for Nothing” video with “Beverly Hillbillies” and the “UFH” theme song video got the chance to mock Prince as Weird Al came out of the bathtub at Prince did in “When Doves Cry.” The movie wasn’t successful though it is a cult classic.

(Michael Richards pre-Kramer)

It was now the 1990s. Rap music seemed like something I could like; Digital Underground’s “The Humpty Dance” Young MC’s “Bust A Move” Tone Loc’s “Funky Cold Medina,” Third Base’s “Pop Goes The Weasel” and if the kids today liked this MC Hammer, I could live with that. But the rap and hip-hop that became popular was now far removed from my life. Then there was grunge. If I had children, I would not want them to listen to Nirvana. But Al sensed something about this up-and-coming group, got the set and actors from the “Smells Like Teen Spirit” video together and “Smells Like Nirvana” became an Al classic. Kurt Cobain gave his permission and was relieved to hear that it wasn’t a food song. I’ve read the group enjoyed the parody how nobody understood their lyrics. As the 1990s moved on, video stations were playing less videos but Al stayed in tune with the culture. The megahit movie “Jurassic Park” was sung to “MacArthur Park” He took the popular Crash Test Dummies song and did a similar parody of “Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm” with “Headline News.”

1996 was the first full year I was online. Sometimes people interacted and got along and sometimes they didn’t. But there was one area where I was happy to see people unite; everyone was a Weird Al fan! Al put out his album “Bad Hair Day.” In the only instance where Al annoyed an artist, there was a misunderstanding if Coolio gave permission for him to sing “Gangsta’s Paradise” for “Amish Paradise.” Al’s version was funny and as Al said, if he offended any Amish, you’re not supposed to be watching TV!! Al seemed genuinely sorry for the misunderstanding with Coolio, he always wanted the original artist’s permission, they came to an understanding in 2006, and in 2014 Coolio totally apologized for the way he acted. The President of the United States’ “Lump” because “Gump” after Forest Gump and included Ruth Buzzi and Pat Boone in the video. He sang the hilarious theme song to Leslie Nielsen’s spoof movie of “Die Hard” called “Spy Hard.” I can’t remember the year but there was an all-star cast for Paul McCartney’s “Drive My Car” and Al dressed up as the three surviving Beatles of the time in 1964 dress; Paul, George and Ringo. The years were going on and Weird Al kept adding to his catalogue. Yes, different styles, but if only The Rolling Stones and The Beach Boys were adding to their catalogue like that, as we got to the new millennium.

Wish I was a Star Wars fan. There would probably be a lot more Weird Al I would love and understand such as “The Saga Begins” which George Lucas loved and based on Don McLean’s “American Pie” from 1999 “Running With Scissors” though I understood “Pretty Fly for a Rabbi.” 2003’s “Poodle Hat” album would make Billboard’s Top 20. As the years went on, I did not know these songs but I was happy Weird Al was successful. He also wrote children books and had a Saturday morning children’s TV show. However, it didn’t matter that I never heard of Chamillionaire and his hit “Ridin’” because the parody, “White & Nerdy” was Weird Al’s first top 10 single with an awesome appearance from Mr. White & Nerdy himself, Donny Osmond, and “Straight Outta Lynwood” became Weird Al’s first top ten album!

Weird Al finally got me to set up my personal Twitter account. I had joined and quit Twitter many times. I started a corporate account in 2010 and kept it mostly business with some fun things thrown in off hours. But the 2011 Lady Gaga controversy made me realize I needed a personal account. The story was that Al took “Born This Way” and made it “Perform This Way.” He went through a lot of hoops to get it approved by Lady Gaga’s people but in the end they said no. Weird Al went public with it. Maybe it was a publicity stunt. Right after that, Lady Gaga came forward to say she was a big Weird Al fan and she was proud he wanted to parody her song. It was on the 2011 “Alpocalpse” CD which had a good parody version of the Miley Cyrus song as “Party in the CIA.” Al griped a bit that critics said it was OK but wasn’t as good as the Weird Al album they remember from high school. Or for some of us, when we were new to our post-college careers.

In June 2014, I saw the news on Twitter that Weird Al had a new CD to be released on July 15th called “Mandatory Fun.” As usual the thought made me smile. Maybe there would be a video and song I liked. I heard there would be eight videos in eight days but after the first one, well, what if my favorite classic rock groups had to put out eight original videos? I would judge Weird Al on a curve. Videos were to be released starting July 14th at 11AM Eastern.

First came “Tacky” based on Pharrell Williams’ “Happy.” I had no idea about this #1 song with 360 million YouTube hits until the first few notes and it was like, “Oh yeah, they play that at the supermarket!” With an all-star cast and modern lyrics about threatening waiters with bad YELP reviews it was debatablely the best song and video of Weird Al’s career. People loved Tuesday’s “Word Crimes” based on Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” though, in an online universe where I seem to be the only person careful about using “there vs. their” “too vs. to vs. two” and “it’s and its,” it came across as somewhat elitist as those 2007 “I judge you when you use bad grammar” Facebook groups. Wednesday was “Handy” and Thursday was “Foil” and it wasn’t really for me. But Friday was “Sports Song” a great spoof on half-time marching bands songs. The German World Cup soccer team should have sang this after their victory over Argentina instead of what they did sing. The Pixies’ parody for Saturday; “First World Problems” was great and had that borderline animal humor Al is known for. Sunday was “Lame Claim to Fame” which everyone can identify with or wishes they could. Then the last day brought “Mission Statement” a brilliant spoof on company’s nonsensical mission statements, made more topical by Microsoft’s recent internal press release announcing the lay-off of thousands of workers. All this sung in the style of Crosby Stills and Nash’s, “Suite Judy Blue Eyes.”

The critics and fans were awed! 35 years into his career, maybe the best collection of Weird Al songs ever. Nobody was grousing for the old days. To cap it off, “Mandatory Fun became the first #1 album of his career.

If Weird Al is still relevant, then aren’t also his fans? That’s a rhetorical question.