Album Reviews

[spmahn]

I don't know, The Safety Dance actually sounds well produced, Brady Bunch sounds like someone belted out the tune by ear in about 30 seconds on a 5 dollar Radio Shack keyboard

[oddaustin]

I can see your point, I guess. The parody certainly doesn't seem as well produced.

I just don't really like In 3D in general. I dig a few originals (Nature Trail, Midnight Star) , and that's about it.

[weirdojace]

You should talk to my friend Brandon, who will tell you why In 3-D is Weird Al's best album, in explicit detail.

[anthontherun]

Now, I will grant you that "The Brady Bunch" isn't much more clever or original than "Syndicated Inc.". However, it was rather clever to match the lyrics of the show with the original song, just like with "Beverly Hillbillies.".

I guess in retrospect it was probably more impressive before MFN/BH came out, since that song is essentially the same concept but eons better. Largely because the video is so impressive, but even without the visuals it's a pretty cool listen--and yes, part of that is because I like the original MFN, which I'll admit isn't Al's doing, but it still is a pretty crucial component of every parody--while I don't find the lyrics to WYL to be all that funny, it certainly doesn't help that the original is easily the worst song Al has ever opted to parody. For that reason, given the choice, I'd rather listen to SI than TBB, but I don't really go out of my way to play either one.

Beyond that thou, no, it wasn't a very clever parody at all. But I suppose I give that song some slack because it was still very early in Al's career. I find his early stuff to be much more hit or miss, especially with many of the food parodies, which when held up against more recent stuff like "Pretty Fly For a Rabbi" and "White & Nerdy", just aren't that funny anymore.

That's definitely true, and I agree about "Eat It" as well. I think it still stands up pretty well but I'll go out on a limb and say that somebody, somewhere in the world between 1982 and 1984 came up with that idea before Al did. Turning "Beat It" into "Eat It" is hardly the most original concept ever, and there are some lazy rhymes in there. Neither of those are deal-breakers but Al couldn't get away with it nowadays.

[Wizzerkat]

I disagree about only two good songs being on Polka Party. I like all of the originals and am meh about the parodies save Hernia. I also like Syndicated better than the Brady Bunch. I'm strange that way...

[Bruce the Duck]

RE: Polka Party

There are way more than just two good songs on it. IMO.

Christmas at Ground Zero, Good Enough For Now, Dog Eat Dog, One of Those Days, Living with a Hernia, and Here's Johnny were all solid songs. Very well done, all of them. Polka Party was a fine medley too. The rest were stinkers, but most of the album was good for the time they were written. They don't hold up to, say, IAATP, but it was a different era for Al. That album's biggest problem was the title and cover. Whoever thought it was a good idea to call the album Polka Party in a time when you couldn't readily sample songs on iTunes or Amazon was a fool.

RE: I Can't Watch This

I often see this lumped in with Syndicated Inc. and Couch Potato. I don't think ICWT is a bad parody at all. It's not just a listing TV shows, because there are actual jokes in it. "Transexual Nazi Eskimo", "you gotta be Rainman to like this guy", "that's funny as a kick in the crotch", etc, and the idea of using the commercial bits over the interludes was very clever. No way does this rank in the same category as "Hey, let's see how many TV shows I can name that end in a long E!" or "My idea for this Eminem video is so brilliant I don't even need to bother making the song any good - oh whoops!".

[AlejandraDD]

It is my firm belief that Polka Party did not sell well because of the word "Polka" in the title and the cover art being Weird Al playing the accordion. The fact that he was playing the accordion in a crowd of punk-rock people was lost to me the first 55 times I looked at the cover until I finally got it. If I had been a "normal" person at the record store and I seen that cover, I would have instantly dismissed it, thinking it was a album full of straight polkas.

[RyanHippFTW]

RE: Dare To Be Stupid and Polka Party

Okay, there is a lot wrong here.

In 3-D did very well, Eat It was a hit, I Lost On Jeopardy did well, and even King of Suede was released.

"King Of Suede" was released about two months before "I Lost On Jeopardy", and did better on the charts. #81 is far from doing "well".

That album had five parodies and Polkas on 45 which was to most people at the time was a parody of Polkas on 45. So it was like getting six parodies.

That doesn't make any sense.

Then came Stupid. Which was good. LIke a Surgeon was a hit, but people expected more parodies.

How do you know people were expecting more parodies?

So was Yoda, but why such an old song? (In those days it was. You heard Lola only on the station old people listen to.)

Al had been performing it live for years, he just hadn't been granted permission from the original artist till they were working on DTBS. How do you know the age of people listening to oldies stations at the time?

Girls Just Wanna Have Lunch? Didn't make much sense. It would have if it were Girls just Wanna Buy Shoes.

No. Just, no.

And it lacked the fifth parody.

.....whoever said that a Weird Al album had to have a 5th parody? 4 of his albums have gone without having 5 parodies.

To me It was a good album because of Dare To Be Stupid being a great single and good style parody of Devo

DTBS was never released as a single. It was the B-side (along with Lion's version of the "Transformers" theme) on some releases of the Stan Bush single "The Touch".

But back then people assumed all of his songs were supposed to be parodies. I did at first. And whenever someone heardan Album played they asked "what's this a parody of?" for every song. They wanted to hear parodies.

Again, how do you know what people were doing back then? People still do that today, and it isn't out of wanting to hear parodies, it is out of ignorance.

So then came Polka Party. And that only had four parodies.

Again, what is the big deal with there only being 4 parodies?

And it led off with Hernia when Addicted to Spuds would have done much better, especially with Addicted to Love being such a talked about video. I think Al would have done well with just having the video of him on stage with the Mrs. Potato Heads playing in the band for a video.

Al has said before, if I recall correctly, that the reason they didn't do a video for "Addicted To Spuds" was because it would've basically been the "Addicted To Love" portion of the "UHF" video being done for 4 minutes. A one joke video.

And out of only 4 parodies, only 3 were hits.

Polka Party! had no hits.

And where-as Polkas On 45, and Hooked On Polkas were take offs of songs that existed, Polka Party was just another medley.

That doesn't make any sense. "Polkas On 45" and "Hooked On Polkas" are medleys just like "Polka Party!".

So I think to those who were on the fence about buying the album were disappointed that there wasn't more parodies like Like a Surgeon on DTBS, they didn't see many parodies on Polka Party and didn't buy it.

That first half doesn't make sense. How would a consumer automatically know the number of parodies on the album? They could've mistaken one of the originals for a parody for all we know, just by looking at the cover.

And with the success of the Fat video, I think Even Worse would have sold a lot more if people were happy with Polka Party.

Once more, you are failing to make sense.

[weirdojace]

Weird Al is serious business.

[TMBJon]

while I don't find the lyrics to WYL to be all that funny, it certainly doesn't help that the original is easily the worst song Al has ever opted to parody

No way, the worst song Al has ever parodied is Milli Vanilli "Don't Forget My Number" or whatever the hell that was.