Re: A Weird Al "History of Pop/Rock Timeline" Idea
Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2014 11:24 pm
Just let me know when you all figure out which song was supposed to be the Elton John style parody Bermuda was talking about....
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The problem with that one is he said it doesn't really resemble Elton John that much in its final state. Kind of like how you'd never guess "Hardware Store" was a Presidents of the United States of America style parody, because it didn't work and they went a different direction with it. That said, my money's on "Nature Trail to Hell."mrmeadows wrote:Just let me know when you all figure out which song was supposed to be the Elton John style parody Bermuda was talking about....
Check out "Permanent Vacation" from the album of the same name. He does it a few times in there. Without extensively scouring through my collection, I know he's done it in other songs as well, but that's probably the best example since "Permanent Vacation" came out in March 1987 and Al recorded "Vanna" in November of that year same year.Skippy wrote:Do you know a song where Tyler does the "-a" extra syllable thing? I gave the theory a fair investigation and couldn't find anything, nor do I really remember him doing that from my own Aerosmith knowledge.
Listening to it again, I hear what you mean. Al's is more obvious, but it's there. He does this in "Dude (Looks Like a Lady)" too. PV is probably my favorite Aerosmith album (I was too young to know them from the 70s, but I like a lot of that stuff too) and it's where I focused when I was I exploring this, for the reasons you mentioned.Bruce the Duck wrote: Check out "Permanent Vacation" from the album of the same name. He does it a few times in there.
All points granted, and after listening again, I defer to the combo Van Halen/Aerosmith combo theory.I think with that song he was trying capture the essence of 80s rock, combining influences from two of the biggest bands of the time. So, I would put "Vanna" right in the mid-1980s since that was when Van Halen got big and when Aerosmith began their comeback.
Bermuda "does not recall the intended sound" for "Hamsters".TMBJon wrote:Radioactive Hamsters, UHF, Let Me Be Your Hog, Fun Zone - Are any of these style parodies???
Bermuda wrote:I imagine Al has heard comments from the likes of Ben Folds, Taylor Hanson, maybe Steven Tyler, and probably some others.
Going through Ask Al and it says that the beginning of DWTS is a Kinks song, but the rest is originalSkippy wrote:Polka Party! is done. There's really one song I'm not entirely sure what to do with, and that's "Don't Wear Those Shoes." The opening is very obviously "Father Christmas" by The Kinks, but the rest of the song bears little to no resemblance. Meanwhile, "One of Those Days" appears to also draw heavily from a Kinks song, "Ducks on the Wall." (Thanks to TheLazenby again for pointing me toward these songs.) I'm more inclined to think that "One Of Those Days" is the intended style parody, but honestly it could be either one of them, or both. I have a feeling Al was just listening to a lot of Kinks back then.
Two other songs on this album are typically just considered generic genre songs, but I decided to attribute them to specific artists. For "Good Enough For Now," I went with Ray Price's 1956 song "Crazy Arms." It's the original country shuffle, and follows the structure of GEFN pretty closely (really, vice versa, but you get it.) For "Christmas at Ground Zero," I think beyond just a standard carol, Al was going for the style of Phil Spector's 1963 Christmas album, particularly the Ronettes and Crystals songs.
Skippy wrote:Polka Party! is done. There's really one song I'm not entirely sure what to do with, and that's "Don't Wear Those Shoes." The opening is very obviously "Father Christmas" by The Kinks, but the rest of the song bears little to no resemblance. Meanwhile, "One of Those Days" appears to also draw heavily from a Kinks song, "Ducks on the Wall." (Thanks to TheLazenby again for pointing me toward these songs.) I'm more inclined to think that "One Of Those Days" is the intended style parody, but honestly it could be either one of them, or both. I have a feeling Al was just listening to a lot of Kinks back then.
Two other songs on this album are typically just considered generic genre songs, but I decided to attribute them to specific artists. For "Good Enough For Now," I went with Ray Price's 1956 song "Crazy Arms." It's the original country shuffle, and follows the structure of GEFN pretty closely (really, vice versa, but you get it.) For "Christmas at Ground Zero," I think beyond just a standard carol, Al was going for the style of Phil Spector's 1963 Christmas album, particularly the Ronettes and Crystals songs.