World of Weird Al Yankovic

Well, I didn't look at the whole discography *I looked him up, and it listed everything he's done*, but, it said he did orchestral arrangements and keys for Greatest Hits II, and played keys on OTDE and Alapalooza.

Well, to clarify, he did the orchestral arrangements for Jurassic Park. So, I'm guessing he just did OTDE and Alapalooza, and played keys on some songs on both cds. Songs from both cds, as we all know, are included on Greatest Hits II.

Ah. I guess I could have gone to the mothership and researched it too. Thanks Patti!

I don't have the CD or the video. I'm thinking I might go eBaying for them when I get more money.

babalu music is an amazing remix. it inspired me to make my own remix of I love lucy

I recently found this on a used CD excursion for $1.99 so naturally I picked it up even though I'm not much of a ILL fan.

Anyway, scouring the liner notes, I'm not 100% sure what Al's contribution here is. He's listed as the producer (not executive producer) although obviously most of these songs were recorded before he was even born. He's specifically mentioned as producing the title track, which makes more sense, but did he also compose the music for that song? He's not listed as a writer on it.

As an aside, my disc had a pretty bad scratch on it that may or may not have affected the play. Considering it cost about 1/15 of the cheapest used price on Amazon, I won't complain, but do some tracks sound crackly on all copies (specifically the end of "El Cumbanchero" and almost the entire "Babalu") or is my disc faulty?

Al produced the remix, which is the title track. He also selected the other numbers from I Love Lucy's extensive musical archive.

If you scroll up to my post from 2004, you'll see the full credits list for the title track, which includes a lot of Al's regular posse, including Bermuda, Steve, Tony Papa, and Brad Buxer. Al did a wonderful job mixing that title track, I'm sure Desi Arnaz would have been thrilled to hear it! BTW, just for clarity, the songs on the album were mostly from "I Love Lucy", but some were also from Desi's radio program. As a big fan of "I Love Lucy," I think Al did a superb job selecting the tracks for the album. It's the best compilation of Lucy and Desi music ever assembled.

What I've always wondered is how the project got started in the first place. Did Al approach CBS with the idea or did they ask him? And if they approached him, why did they think to ask Weird Al to produce an I Love Lucy soundtrack? It seems an unlikely choice, even with Al's recording of "Ricky.".

It doesn't seem that unlikely to me. Someone at CBS probably saw the "Ricky" video and thought, "this guy seems to know a lot about Lucy..."

You'd be amazed how often that happens in Hollywood.

Al produced the remix, which is the title track. He also selected the other numbers from I Love Lucy's extensive musical archive.

And he corralled none other than Steve and Bermuda to play additional bass and percussion on the remix!

He also supervised the video compilation - there's lots of clever Al-ish editing touches in there, like at the very end when it shows a silent clip of Ricky turning off the projector in embarrassment.

I didn't realize some of TBITB played on the title track, nice. It's a shame Ask Al is DOA because like Jeremy said, I'd love to hear about the genesis of this whole project and how Al got involved.

I used to have Babalu Music on CD but I believe I sent it in to Dave in return for a live bootleg video or something like that.