How come the polkas have never gotten attention?

[anthontherun]

In the midst of discussing "Polka Face" and whether it fills up album #13's Lady Gaga quotient, I kind of wondered why the polka medleys have never really gotten much attention from outside of Al's hardcore fans. I mean, you're collecting about a dozen popular songs into one tight 4-5-minute package...shouldn't people be all over these?

There are some obvious things working against them:
-Polkas aren't exactly tearing up the charts these days.
-People associate Al with parodies; changing the lyrics to popular songs and making them funny. Aside from an occasional switch to reflect the musical style ("Do the Harlem Polka") and some goofy sound effects to mask curse words, the original lyrics are retained. I think that people would "get" the joke behind polkas, but they might not necessarily meet everyone's expectations for Weird Al music.
-Besides opening his concerts with them, Al really doesn't seem to actively promote the polkas. That's probably for royalty reasons, which makes sense. But how can people listen if they don't know the polkas exist?

So what do you think? Why does the rest of the world ignore the polkas? Or do they?

[minnick27]

I think its because he doesnt market them. I can say with almost 100% certainty if Al released a polka as a single it would bomb. Its a nice break on the album, and us hardcores love them, but the average person will not be down with them. And as a concert openeer, everybody is there to see Al and what he brings, hes not selling them on anything, they've already been sold on the idea of Al. And remember, every album is a comeback for him, and what sells them is the parody of a "big" song. Granted the polka is a mish mash of 12 songs, but its not gonna grab new people

[Orthography Enthusiast]

I'm not so sure they are so much ignored as all that. If you look at the YouTube results if you search for "Weird Al polka" even though none of them has an "official" video except maybe for something filched from an Al-TV, they have millions and millions of hits. It would never make financial sense for Al to release a polka as a single; I think they're best employed where Al has them now, as concert openers. I know I've seen plenty of favorable mentions of them in concert and album reviews; they really do show off the musicianship of Al and TBITB.

[HappyGilmore]

Main reason, off the top of my head: money. To officially release it as a single, he'd have to pay out 12-13 seperate royalty checks from each "sale" or play on the radio. As opposed to a single parody, where it's split 50/50 between himself as the new writer and the the original writer.

It's easier to make it an 'album only' track and only pay out once.

[minnick27]

Happy, unless Im reading this wrong, you dont understand the polka royalties. Thats not meant to sound mean, only way I can put it. Al works out a deal for the polka medly, based on percentage. If you had 2 songs in a 2 minute polka, plus Al's music, Al gets 50% since his music runs through the whole thing. The other two artists would then each get 25%. The more artists you get the lower their percentages get. You are correct in him having to write out more checks, which does end up costing him money.

[anthontherun]

I don't think it necessarily would have to be a single, since "Yoda," "eBay," and to a lesser extent "Canadian Idiot" and "Addicted to Spuds" are all fairly well-known. But I think if they did 'push' the polka, it could go viral and pick up some attention.

[HappyGilmore]

Happy, unless Im reading this wrong, you dont understand the polka royalties. Thats not meant to sound mean, only way I can put it. Al works out a deal for the polka medly, based on percentage. If you had 2 songs in a 2 minute polka, plus Al's music, Al gets 50% since his music runs through the whole thing. The other two artists would then each get 25%. The more artists you get the lower their percentages get. You are correct in him having to write out more checks, which does end up costing him money.

The way you worded it sounds better. What you said, essentially, is what I was trying to get across. But I wasn't overly certain how it worked for him, as opposed to the parodies. I knew it meant cutting a lot of checks.

[weirdojace]

Yeah, basically I think it's because they probably wouldn't do well as singles. Not much chart performance potential there. The polkas are best kept as album-only... mainly a treat for the fans. And of course, they make great concert openers.

All the more reason I believe that Polka Face is not justification for Al not doing an actual Lady Gaga parody on this album as well.

OE's right that they have a lot of Youtube hits though. But really, almost every Weird Al song has a ton of Youtube hits.

[Orthography Enthusiast]

As I understand the polka royalties, Al would owe royalties for both words and music, in those 12 or 13 slices, to each of the original artists, because it's really not Al's music throughout, it's theirs, just arranged differently. Al only has the rights to the little linky bits that are referenced as things like "Ear Booker Polka." So the royalty situation is nearly the same as if he decided to just do a straight cover version of somebody's song. Not the best choice financially for a single release.

[weirdojace]

Bohemian Polka would have been a kickass single though.