1 - Skipper Dan: This is the good ol' fashion Al I've been craving since the '90s. Great tune and inspired lyrics.
2 - CNR: This song rocks and is very, very, funny. Plus jsut the way that Al sings it makes it fun to listen to.
3 - Whatever you like: Underrated, with great lyrics.
4 - Ringtone: This is a great great song musically, but lyrically it falls flat. Extremely catchy though!
5 - Craigslist: This song just didn't do it for me. At all.
I'm surprised that I haven't posted in this topic before; I was expecting to see a post by me blathering on about how every song sucks and that Internet Leaks is the worst album of all and blah blah blah.
Anyway, I've definitely come to appreciate IL much more than I used to, and with the benefit of (almost) a year of hindsight, I can see why. But nevermind that.
1: Skipper Dan
First impression: "Jokes? Hello? Anywhere? At all? Oh you're not here."
Looking back, I guess I was just bitter about the previous two singles being weak that I just wanted a song with jokes in it that I could laugh at. That's... not what this song is about. Now, I appreciate its subtlety in the lyrics, and the music is catchy as anything. It's easily the best song out of all of them.
2: CNR
First impression: "Who in the hell?"
Yeah, this is based entirely on the music. I'm sorry, but this is freaking awesome music with very weak lyrics. "Oh that Charles Nelson Reilly. He is not Chuck Norris. Ha ha ha." ...Yeah, that's the joke I'm getting from this. It's unfortunate, too. This could've easily been my favourite.
3: Ringtone
First impression: "All the others suck, why should I even bother?"
It took a while for me to even want to listen to this one. It's a shame, too, because it's a very good song. It's not exactly the most hilarious song ever, but it's much better than what I was willing to give it credit for. It's very catchy, too.
4: Craigslist
First impression: "The Doors! Awesome! ...Huh. This isn't as good as I was expecting."
The style of it is spot on, and the lyrics are funny, but... I dunno. It seems like it has the potential to be the best song on the album, but something's... missing. I have no clue what it is, but it just doesn't seem to 'click' for me. I dunno.
5: Whatever You Like
First impression: "It's a new Weird Al song! It's great! It's... okay. It's... terrible."
Hate it, hate it, hate it. Everything about this song annoys me in some way or another. The original song choice is... Well, it's not exactly one you hear people talking about anymore. At all. So, it's got that against it. But, hey, you never heard anyone talking about Do I Make You Proud either, and that parody turned out good! So then we hear the opening spiel about economy in the toilet. And already, I'm irritated about the song simply because it's essentially explaining the entire premise of the song. Imagine if, instead of the reveal line of "I like to feel the warm spot on your chair" in DICYO, he opened the song with something like "Hey, I'm stalking you, is that weird to you?". It would've ruined the whole song.
And then comes the main chunk of the song which is... Food. Cheap food. It's all cheap food! Get it? I mean, I thought we'd moved past the food parodies, but geez. There's more to being cheap than buying cheap food. But that's the other part that irritates me about the song -- It's got funny lines in it. Cousin Phil, It's all about the Washingtons and Second runner-up Miss Ohio are all funny lines, but that just serves to prove how weak the rest of the song actually is.
So, yeah. That's my feelings on Internet Leaks on year on.
1. Skipper Dan (Awesome melody and music. It's not very funny, but I don't think it's supposed to be.)
2. Ringtone (Not hilarious, but certainly funny. Amazing melody and music.)
3. CNR (Music and melody are great, the lyrics are pretty funny, not as good as Ringtone.)
4. Craigslist (Great music and melody, lyrics have such an evident lack of effort in them.)
5. Whatever You Like (Really Al? I thought we moved passed the food parodies.)
Mystik Tomato wrote:"I like to feel the warm spot on your chair"
Isn't that line "I like to feel the warm spot on your chest", not chair?
Anyway, this took a little thinking, but I have my list:
1. Skipper Dan
I never really thought about how the "skippers" at this ride must feel, doing the same stuff over and over. It really gives a new perspective, along with some nice (slightly dark) humor.
2. CNR
Pretty nice song. Part of my rating relies on the awesome instrumentals. Pretty nice lyrics, too.
3. Whatever You Like
Despite radically different opinions by others, I don't think this song is too bad. The opening line is meant to be parodistic of the opening line of the original song.
4. Craigslist
This doesn't really deserve position four, but I liked the other songs better. At first I didn't really understand it, but it began to grow on me before too long.
5. Ringtone
This is just a terrible song, I'm sorry. It's just one of those songs I can't like as much as I want to. The music is okay, but the lyrics just suck.
1.) Whatever You Like- I don't get all the hate the song seems to get from everyone around here. It's funny. Not GREAT, but not TERRIBLE either. Al's had worse songs in my opinon, like Couch Potato or Syndicated, Inc., honestly.
2.) CNR- Personally, I have a tough time ranking the top three. CNR is pretty much tied at 1st, as it's my favorite non-parody released so far off the new album. Maybe it helps that I'm a fan of Charles Nelson Reilly and hated the Chuck Norris Facts thing, but it works.
3.) Skipper Dan- Great, underrated song with decent lyrics. Not bad, not his best, but it's great live and it makes me laugh.
4.) Craigslist- I like the Doors. I had high expectations. The band in the back plays the music quite well, and the lyrics, while not terrible, aren't really laugh-out-loud, except for the 'bridge' portion talking about the snotty barista and the phone call with his mother.
5.) Ringtone- Musically, great. Lyrically, it's not so much.
I really do think all of the Internet Leaks originals are four of Al's best originals ever, so this is tough to judge. A song does NOT have to have "jokes" in the traditional sense in order to be a funny/enjoyable song, and I really do not get all the people saying this or that song doesn't have jokes in it. I think all five of the Internet Leaks are really funny songs, whether or not there are lyrical puns. I generally appreciate Weird Al songs mostly for their overall joke, ie the style parody and how the song's lyrics relates to the original. It's now been a year so I think I can judge them now as additions to Al's catalogue rather than new material excitement.
1. Craigslist - The top three are all basically tied for first place, but this is on top because of the bonus live action video which does manage to take the style parody one step further. I had the chance to tell Al a week or two after this song came out how genius it was to pair The Doors music with the modern strangeness that is Craigslist. I think this song works lyrically the same way Germs captured NIN's paranoia. This is easily the best song musically on Internet Leaks, and I think the lyrics are funny throughout the song.
2. CNR - I admit to being biased as a White Stripes fan, but man did Al nail their style. Jon and Jim really pulled this off and they're much more successful here than they were with Green Day. Additionally, Charles Nelson-Reilly is someone I was already familiar with for years as I grew up watching Match Game reruns with my parents. The idea to use CNR (a nickname I was also aware of years before this song) as a man of mythic proportions is inspired, and not just because as some people say "he's the opposite of Chuck Norris." I think you just have to be familiar with CNR over many episodes of Match Game to fully appreciate where Al was going with it. Additionally, the music just really rocks.
3. Skipper Dan - I don't care if this is supposedly a Weezer style parody. I really consider it a straight original, though I do hear little bits that sound like Island In The Sun and Pork & Beans. More importantly, this idea that the song is somehow not funny or lacking in jokes: WTF is wrong with you guys? Since when does comedy require a list of funny jokes back to back? Why can't the overall concept of a song be what's funny about it? The funniest Weird Al songs to me are the ones where you take a step back and realize what the whole song is about, and that itself is funnier than any individual joke in the lyrics. This song fits that category. I do think the lyrics have funny moments anyway (the grandfather line sticks out). Downside: video is very unmemorable.
4. Ringtone - Like Amerah I wish this was higher than 4th, but the other songs really are better. This is the only song of the five where I agree the lyrical content is somewhat lacking. But musically, Al and the band really did a number on Queen's style. Also, it's the only one of the five that features Rubén which is a big plus. Finally, Ringtone gets bonus points for being the first Weird Al music video to feature a sitting US president since Christmas At Ground Zero.
5. Whatever You Like - This is definitely the worst of the five, but I think the song is vastly underrated by everyone here and I'm going to attempt to defend it somewhat. First of all, T.I. was a good (not great) choice as far as universal appeal artist. I don't know anyone who was unfamiliar with this song at the time it came out. As for the people who say it's mostly food-based humor, I think you're kind of missing the point. Compare the lyrics of the original to the parody and it's more or less a line by line parody. The overall concept is as well-conceived as it is timely, and most of the individual jokes are successful. Cold Duck on ice instead of Patron on ice epitomizes the song's concept for me. The narrator is a rapper with the mind of T.I. but without the money. It follows the idea that rappers always brag about how rich they are and this song specifically has T.I. talking about how well he would treat his woman and she can have whatever she like. In the Al version, he is essentially doing a style parody of that whole style of rap based on these tough economic times. That's why he kept the same song title: it's basically the exact same song except the singer is now broke. I think it is above average in the annals of Weird Al parody, but far from his best. If this is the worst song on the next album, it will be a tremendous album.
I couldn't tell a dirt clod from a plate of caviar.
)
