Album Reviews

[crazygurl14]

The general public who do not know a lot about Al thinks that he only does parodies, thats why even today 30 years into his career people still ask if he has ever thought about writing his own songs and are suprised to find out that he actually does. Just watch any interview where the person interviewing Al hardly knows who he is they all are suprised that he does. I wasnt around in the 80's but i assume people were even more shocked then about the fact that he is not only a parodist novelty musician

[RyanHippFTW]

A lot of people do think like that, but not every person who isn't an Al fan thinks like that. That is what those other two dudes were saying.

[TMBJon]

no better or worse than anything Lady Gaga has ever done

Setting their scandal aside, I would still assert that the very best Milli Vanilli song is significantly worse than even an average Lady Gaga song. The very best Gaga (Bad Romance or Poker Face, let's say) would blow the best Milli Vanilli out of the water.

[joseyklein]

AAAAAAAAAND we're back with another review for you all to tear apart!!! Just like the first four, I'm sticking with the same format where I'll talk about the album a little bit and then talk about the songs.. so here we go!

After putting an album out that failed to climb higher than #177 on the billboard charts, it seemed that Al was at a stand still and some people were wondering if this was it for Al. But through all this mess Al was still desperate for that single he wanted so bad, and so he went back to Micheal Jackson, cause .. you know.. it worked the first time so why wouldn't it work again?? Well he was right, and he went ahead and wrote his next hit single "Fat" which not only won him a grammy, but also a nomination for best comedy album as well!! This time around it seems that Al's humor has matured a little and the songs on this album are all around the funniest he has done, and its got some of my favorite style parodies as well! So lets get with the tracklist and see whats up on Even Worse



Track 1: Fat (Parody of "Bad" by Michael Jackson)



not only is one of his best ever parodies kicking off the album and ending every show, it is the song that saved his career so to speak. This song is proving that Al has the chops to stay in the industry and forge ahead even when his previous album bombed, and that right there shows a lot not only to the public but to his management and his record label as well.

Track 2: Stuck In A Closet With Vanna White



This is one my favorite originals he has done. Not only is this his first true original rock song, but it sounds like it may be a style parody of Aerosmith (you guys can elaborate on that if ya wanna, its ok its clean!) Here you can also hear his style of humor maturing and everything just fits perfectly, its an awesome song!!

Track 3: (This Song's Just) Six Words Long (Parody of "I've Got My Mind Set On You" by George Harrison)



if you get the joke that Al's pulling in this song, you'll laugh for days. the original song was so annoying I'm actually glad Al chose to take this in a funny new direction about how the original song just said the same thing for 4 minutes! Brilliant!

Track 4: You Make Me



this is by far one of my all time favorites of any Al song out there. its just so goofy, and some great comedy with all the bells and whistles in the style of this other weird group called Oingo Boingo!

Track 5: I Think I'm A Clone Now (Parody of "I Think We're Alone Now" by Tommy James & The Shondells)



This is probably the weakest parody on the album, but its a cool concept and a pretty cool song!!

Track 6: Lasagna (Parody of "La Bamba" by Los Lobos)



I believe that since there is no Polka on this album, this song serves as the perfect replacement being that Al is back using his accordion to lead a song, which at this point in his career, I kinda missed.. another song about food is always good to hear from Al and this song in particular I can listen to a lot.

Track 7: Melanie



and here we got another of his fabled Twisted Love Songs, one of the best ones there is, the concept about a stalker we gets so obsessed that he kills himself by the end of the song and is still there to sing it is hilarious, unless it happened to you..

Track 8: Alimony (Parody of "Mony Mony" by Billy Idol)



I believe that follow one twisted love song with another is.... PERFECT!!! not only is this another twisted love song, but its a parody of a cover of the original.... mony mony is a song I was used to hearing on the oldies station when I would ride in my dads car during the summertime when i was younger, so hearing Al do this was hilarious, and the subject matter and the delivery makes this song even more hilarious!!

Track 9: Velvet Elvis



Here is another song that took awhile for me to get used to, another one that isn't really that funny to me, but I do detect The Police in the music, any thoughts?

Track 10: Twister



This a quick little number that is a perfect spot on style parody of "Beastie Boys" this is one of my favorite songs to use when Im making fans outta people.

Track 11: Good Old Days



I gotta say this is my favorite last song ever!!! I just love how it sound a bit serious near the beginning and gets more and more crazy toward the end, and in my opinion is one of his best songs to date!!

Well that was fun guys, I do wish that this album ended up with that U2 Polka that TBITB mentioned to me in 2007, that would have been an interesting one to hear, and also I wish that Al had toured behind this album, would have been interesting to see what songs would have ended up on that setlist. well, until tomorrow, good day to ya and enjoy the review!!

[PolkaFace27]

no better or worse than anything Lady Gaga has ever done

Setting their scandal aside, I would still assert that the very best Milli Vanilli song is significantly worse than even an average Lady Gaga song. The very best Gaga (Bad Romance or Poker Face, let's say) would blow the best Milli Vanilli out of the water.

Agreed

[joseyklein]

Even Worse Review is up there on top of the newbs post

[Whatinthe27]

NOTE: I did a bit of re-editing here.

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".

I didn't say they were released in that order. And I think the fact that I Lost On Jeopardy was played quite a bit on Mtv and was well liked and even got some airplay on radio allows me to say it did well. And I'm talking about from the album's standpoint, not singles sales. People liked the album because it had more than a lead single. They liked the other parodies on it.

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.

Sorry, I can't type any slower...

Strike that, I apologize. That sentence should have said ".... Polkas on 45 which was to most people at the time was a parody of STARS on 45."

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?

Well for one, when I went to buy the album with a friend, and asked him a day later, he said, "It was alright, but i thought there would be more parodies on it."

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?

Because the people who would say top 40 stations play nothing but disco tended to be over 30, and they listened only to Rock 107, which played classic rock. You didn't hear Lola on the same station you would hear Safety Dance or Beat It. And you didn't hear Beat It on Rock 107.. although they did play Eat It, because the DJs on that station didn't like Michael Jackson. Also, People who weren't fans didn't know he had been performing it live for years. Some fans didn't even know of Yoda yet. Dr. Demento played it, but around here He got lousy time slots on an unpopular station. I'm sure that was the case in most small radio markets.

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

No. Just, no.

Uh, Yes, just yes. I don't know if you've ever talked to girls or know any, but there's plenty who crave shoe shopping. I've never heard of any girl who was addicted to eating lunch.

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.

No one did. But why then does Al tend to stick to his current formula? I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that he realized that Albums with 5 parodies, one polka Medley and 12 songs tend to sell more.

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".

The qualifier here is the sentence starts with "To me". I'm giving you my opinion. I consider it a single when they put in the time and money to produce a video for Mtv. They weren't trying to sell 45's, they were trying to sell the album.

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.

How do I now? Because I was alive back then. I was in high school art class when the teacher played In 3-D. Someone else brought the record in, but I told them I had the album too. They kept asking what this is a parody of, and believe me, when they realized it wasn't a parody of something, they lost interest quick. Keep in mind, Al was new back then. I'm talking about gaining fans and selling albums. Kids loved Eat It. But in order to buy the album they wanted to know there was more parodies on it. I'm talking from experience.

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

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

Again, my point is the person on the fence about buying an album. And we're talking about teens spending over ten bucks, they wanted to know there were parodies on it. The average kid didnt' even know who doctor demento was. They weren't comedy fans per say, so silly songs didn't appeal to them, necessarily, but if it was a silly song based on a melody they already heard a hundred times and the liked the original, they found the parody funny. Simple math, 5 is better than 4. You're a teen spending money, you want to know you're going to like more than one song on the album. I'm talking about teens, because one, that was my perspective back then, and two, I believe that's the target audience of pop back then.

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.

I know, but I'm saying in my opinion, if he had the idea back then of doing it with the potato head suits, it would have done better than Living with a Hernia. He chose what might have done better videowise, over what would have done better radiowise.

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

Polka Party! had no hits.

out of only 4 parodies, only 3 of the original targets were hits. In other words, only Living in America, Addicted to Love, and Who's Johnny, were hits. Ruthless People was not.

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!".

And I'm saying back then, they weren't. Do you even know what Stars on 45 is? Hooked on Classics? Granted Hooked on Classics/Hooked on Polkas was a huge reach. But Stars on 45/Polkas on 45 was not. I say this because Stars on 45 was a medley of pop songs, though I believe it was heavy on the Beatles, and I don't think Al covered any that was on Stars on 45 in Polks on 45. Hooked on Classics was actually a medley of Classical songs with a touch of rock and pop, and I don't think there were any lyrics.

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.

Because they had stickers on them saying, Includes the Hits Eat It, Parodies of Men WithOut Hats and the Police. Again, I was alive for all this.
And here you unwittingly prove my previous point, they could've mistaken one of the polka medleys for a parody by looking at the cover. If you were around back then, and you listened to the radio you would assume that they were parodies of the well known songs Stars on 45 and Hooked on Classics.

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.[/quote]

If you buy an album, and you're not happy with it, how likely are you to buy the album by that artist when he follows it up? People who weren't happy with Dare to Be Stupid weren't likely to buy Polka Party. I know a huge part of why it didn't sell is because record stores and music fans assumed it was an all polka album. But I'm saying those who bought Polka Party and didnt' like it weren't likley to give Even Worse a try. For further reference when I walked around with an ALtv shirt on in high school, kids asked "what is A - L tv?" Al didn't have nearly as many fans back then as he does now. When I first saw him during Off the Deep End the venue was less than half full. Now that same venue sells out.

For the record, I'm 41 and I was 14 in 1984

[Mad Genius]

On the subject matter of "Velvet Elvis" being a pastiche of the Police, I am inclined to agree because it sounds like something out of either Synchronicity, or Zenyatta Mondatta [I like the Police, so hearing King of Suede and Velvet Elvis is a delight for me].

I will also add that Twister does sound very much like the Beastie Boys, right down to Al imitating Mike D, with "spin the spinner and call the shots!" Sheer GENIUS.

[RyanHippFTW]

If you buy an album, and you're not happy with it, how likely are you to buy the album by that artist when he follows it up? People who weren't happy with Dare to Be Stupid weren't likely to buy Polka Party. I know a huge part of why it didn't sell is because record stores and music fans assumed it was an all polka album. But I'm saying those who bought Polka Party and didnt' like it weren't likley to give Even Worse a try. For further reference when I walked around with an ALtv shirt on in high school, kids asked "what is A - L tv?" Al didn't have nearly as many fans back then as he does now. When I first saw him during Off the Deep End the venue was less than half full. Now that same venue sells out.

For the record, I'm 41 and I was 14 in 1984

I like how you had my whole response quoted up there but you didn't even reply to any of my arguments.

[anthontherun]

Musically, just as pure compositions, to this day "Melanie" and "Good Old Days" have got to be two of Al's finest originals ever.