The Ultimate Parody Guide

[TMBJon]

Thanks GWG. I was wondering about that myself. And I definitely agree that IRL doesn't really fit with either of those two songs. It seems very unlikely that Al would try to style parody such an obscure TMBG song like See The Constellation.

[GWGumby]

Well, about 10 minutes after my last post, I actually found Hilly Michael's first album posted on-line. I've been looking for it for years, and now it suddenly shows up. I'm not sure what the rules are for this forum, but I will respond to PMs if anyone wants more info on that.

Anyway, after listening to the album several times, I'm less convinced that "I Remember Larry" is the Hilly Michaels song. Unfortunately, there's no really obvious elements that jumped out upon listening that pointed to any one specific Weird Al song. It only took 10 seconds of listening to "This Town Ain't Big Enough For The Both Of Us" from Sparks to know that was what Al based "Virus Alert" on. In this case, however, there's nothing that really stands out.

The closest I could point to would be a song called "U.S. Male." The chorus has Hilly along with background singers chanting "U.S. U.S. U.S. U.S....I'm your U.S. Male" to which you could very easily sing along "You can read it...You can read it...You can read it..." from "Midnight Star." There's also a break in the song where a female chorus sings a few lines from "The Star Spangled Banner" in a way similar to the female chorus singing, "Tell me tell me tell me how to make my bust-line grow" in "Midnight Star."

Otherwise, Hilly Michael's music is a very poppy 80's-style rock with a lot of high harmonies, guitars, keyboards, and other things common to the era. Which is probably why it's difficult to pick out where Weird Al might have been copying him. It sounds very much like the type of sound we've associated with Al when he's not specifically copying anybody. (Unless Al is always trying to copy somebody and we just haven't figured all the references out yet.)

[TheLazenby]

Wikipedia had "Midnight Star" listed as a spoof on "Walk The Line" by Toto... it doesn't sound anything like that!!

And TMBJon, think of all the obscure stuff that he has style parodied before - about one in 10,000,000 people have probably heard "Dick's Automotive", for instance; a song by an obscure band, off of an indie EP they put out years before Al spoofed it! Same with "I Was Only Kidding" - "H.A.T.R.E.D." came out years before, and was by some obscure local artist named Tonio K...

[TMBJon]

I agree with that, but at the same time he had already done a general TMBG style parody on the same album, which makes it very unlikely that he would then do a very specific style parody of the same artist. I think in general most of the style parodies are just meant to sound like the artist, not any specific song. Al has said he listens to the complete oeuvre of an artist before writing a style parody after all. I know there are a few exceptions to this rule, but it seems like in general he is only going for the artist's overall sound.

[TheLazenby]

He did two Peter Gabriel style parodies on "Alapalooza". (Not to mention, he did two Tommy James parodies on "Even Worse", and a Soul Asylum parody and style parody on "Even Worse".)

[DareToBeStupid]

Great list indeed!

I know some are before Al's first CD,But why haven't the unreleased songs ever been released on any CDs?

[Bruce the Duck]

Great list indeed!

I know some are before Al's first CD,But why haven't the unreleased songs ever been released on any CDs?

Well, if the unreleased songs WERE released then they wouldn't be unreleased anymore now would they?

But to answer your question seriously, Al has stated that he isn't especially fond of his own early pre-record deal stuff. Some of it has been released on Dr. Demento's Basement Tapes though, over the years.

[Grom]

Also, some aren't released because he couldn't clear permission or didn't think an idea could be expanded to fill a full song.

[Keir]

Does anyone know a song closer to "Minnesota" than "30,000 Pounds"? I always considered it a style parody of that, but listening to "Pounds" again, i found that my memory was faulty... actually, Harry's live version sounds closer to "Minnesota". The album version isn't quite so overproduced.

I always thought this was a parody of "30,000 Pounds of Bananas" too, but I guess it's only similar in parts. In the book that comes with the Permanent Record box set Al says, "Musically it was inspired by Harry Chapin and Gordon Lightfoot, all their storyteller songs, those sprawling narratives." You can really hear the GL influence in the part that starts with "Oh, what on earth would make a man decide to do that kind of thing?"

[Grom]

Attack Of The Radioactive Hamsters From A Planet Near Mars sounds a little like a Men At Work song.