World of Weird Al Yankovic

anthontherun wrote:Holy crap, that was excellent! I wouldn't be surprised if at least one or two of those songs were in the actual polka and arranged identically.

Well, the whole reason I did it because there WAS no polka on "Internet Leaks" hoping that by the time his next album goes out, newer songs will be popular. If I did do a medley when there was a one on an album already, I'd just be in Al's Polka Shadow. Because there was no polka, there was no shadow. I could take the shadow metaphor further, but it would be stumbling in the dark...d'oh!

For the polkas though Al usually goes with a couple years' worth of hits, usually in between the last album and the new one. Stone Temple Pilots' "Sex Type Thing" came out in 1992 but it was featured on the 1996 "The Alternative Polka." Don't worry, you're not in Al's shadow--you beat him to it this time!

jimlapbap wrote:No. Just the banjo. Everything else was MIDI. I did pretty much arrange it from scratch by taking down the melodies and chord by ear and arranging the instrumentation and vocals, etc. (I'm much more of a composer/arranger than a performer. It's just that no one else is usually crazy enough to want to take the time to learn and perform my stuff

Wow! You totally fooled me! The banjo sounds really awesome! I love MIDI, as you can work with it and make it sounds legitimate. Your composition skills are really, really good. I'm glad you decided to do a polka! It was super fun!

I think the entire song sounds fooling enough to have been real!

Here is my completely honest non-sugar-coated review:

Excellent idea, great video work. Several songs that really ought to be polka'd in there. Loved your rendition of Kanye West's "Heartless" and OK Go's "This Too Shall Pass." Even the MIDI accordion is passable but the vocals need to have more feeling and less volume. You sound too robotic. Al's voice is alot more expressive - like on "My Way or the Highway" on the Angry White Boy Polka. Being louder by twisting that volume knob doesn't necessarily make a bigger impression. I've ruined a couple tracks by doing that. You're on key at least using Autotune, but just because you're doing a parody of songs that use too much Autotune doesn't mean your voice has to sound bored. But great work overall and I hope more people do their own polkas. You really beat Weird Al to the punch.

I did something like that right before Kanye West's "Stronger" came out with my own "Daft Wash" track. I was hoping there'd be a Daft Punk parody in that polka somewhere. Oh well