World of Weird Al Yankovic

Well, everyone is entitled to their opinion. Attack Of The Radioactive Hamsters From A Planet Near Mars, I Was Only Kidding, One Of Those Days and Gotta Boogie are among my favorites, could never get enough of those. My Baby's In Love With Eddie Vedder is genius, so is Close But No Cigar. Love those tracks.

I seem to be in the minority here, but "If That Isn't Love" is easily my least favorite. He's done so many of these "twisted" love songs, and at this point the formula is starting to get a little stale. Plus, as mentioned in the "bathroom humor" thread, some of the lyrics here are just crude. But really, the problem for me is that it's not funny enough to offset the cheesiness of the music. I don't hate Hanson or anything, but this definitely doesn't make me want to check out more of their material. And I understand that he may have deliberately been going for a stereotypical saccharine love song chorus, but I think he pulled that off a little *too* well here.

I've given the album more listens than I care to count, and I have to say that I still can't get into 'Ringtone' at all. At first, I didn't like 'Craigslist' and 'Whatever You Like' but both have grown on me, particularly WYL.

'Ringtone' however, is in my opinion, one of Al's worst songs. I do like the guitar work on it, and I can hear the Brian May-ness in it. However, the song itself is pretty poor - the melody is dull and the premise itself of crappy ringtone is something that may have been funny if done about 10 years ago. And it's also Al's worst vocal performance since the early days - his falsetto is too weak for something labelled as a Queen style parody. The harmonies suck too, and those big vocal harmonies were a signature of Queen throughout their career.

Ringtone is the worst track off the cd.

Alright, take it easy..

kevhamster wrote: The harmonies suck too, and those big vocal harmonies were a signature of Queen throughout their career.

I wouldn't say they "suck," and I do like "Ringtone," but I think this is a pretty fair complaint and a rare case of Al not perfecting a style parody. When Queen did epics--and they did them fairly often, especially in the 70s--they went all out in every department. Even when it was just Freddie Mercury, Brian May and Roger Taylor singing the harmonies, the way it was produced managed to turn it into what sounded like a massive operatic choir. The harmonies on "Ringtone"...are obviously just one voice and it sounds triple-tracked at most, if not just slathered in some sort of vocal effect. Al really should've gone bigger in this department.

anthontherun wrote:

kevhamster wrote: The harmonies suck too, and those big vocal harmonies were a signature of Queen throughout their career.

I wouldn't say they "suck," and I do like "Ringtone," but I think this is a pretty fair complaint and a rare case of Al not perfecting a style parody. When Queen did epics--and they did them fairly often, especially in the 70s--they went all out in every department. Even when it was just Freddie Mercury, Brian May and Roger Taylor singing the harmonies, the way it was produced managed to turn it into what sounded like a massive operatic choir. The harmonies on "Ringtone"...are obviously just one voice and it sounds triple-tracked at most, if not just slathered in some sort of vocal effect. Al really should've gone bigger in this department.

That is the thing - Pancreas is an example of what Al is capable of when he goes all out, I mean he totally nailed the Brian Wilson sound on that, harmonies and all (and those harmonies couldn't have been easy to do).

Ringtone sounds rushed, and it falls well below Al's usual high standard. It's the only part of the album I found disappointing.

Maybe he was actually foreseeing the song's destiny as... wait for it... a ring tone, and didn't see the point of putting so much effort into a a song that would be turned off as soon as possible?

I think the difference between Pancreas and Ringtone is this: the whole point of the song Pancreas is to mimic Brian Wilson's style. That is why the song was created. Ringtone, while it happens to be performed in the style of Queen, is in my view more about the lyrical content and jokes about having a bad ringtone. Indeed, many of Al's style parodies are clearly only recorded so that Al can parody that style of music (Twister, anyone?), while others are meant as original comedy recordings which also happen to be musical homages to other artists (eg Skipper Dan).

It feels like sacrilege to even be suggesting that there is a "worst" track on one of Al's CDs, but... the only song on this album I don't play is "Whatever You Like." And I fully admit it's for selfish, and semi-amusing reasons. I don't dislike the song or think it's bad at all. It just hits too close to home. He makes fun of Ohio, cribbage, pizza, mac and cheese... probably a few other things I like, too, that I can't remember because I haven't played it in so long. I like it a lot better when Al makes fun of people who are nothing like me. At all. :-)