Comments on: Epic Win: Weird Al

By: robrtbll

robrtbll — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 01:32:14 +0000

Weird Al is definitely a crazed comic genius! I hope he continues to produce these maniac marvel of music for decades to come!

By: Yotso

Yotso — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 09:09:41 +0000

There was only one song Al did that he didn’t have permission for (to my knowledge), and that was “Amish Paradise.” Apparently Coolio, who did “Gangster’s Paradise,” didn’t want it done, but one of Al’s people (a producer or something, years ago I heard this) said they got the go ahead. Needless to say, Al apologized quite sincerely, as that broke his rule on parodies (he even got permission for “My Bologna” when he was just a student in college).

Heard it on VH1’s Behind the Music, I think.

By: GoddessEvie

GoddessEvie — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 23:31:56 +0000

The only time it’s ever cool to play the Accordion is when Weird Al is doing it. Otherwise it’s an EPIC FAIL!!!!!

My favorite Weird Al Christmas song is “The Night Santa Went Crazy”! And his parody of Star Wars Episode 1 to “American Pie” is right up there with Yoda in place of Lola.

God Bless you, Weird Al. Here’s to another 30 years of musical parodyings and funny new songs.

P.S. How many of you memorized the words to “Albuquerque”?

By: fvzappa

fvzappa — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 05:45:09 +0000

I’ve met a few hundred celebrities & Al is, without a doubt, the nicest you’ll ever meet.

By: Dan

Dan — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 23:58:49 +0000

He also does a great Frank Zappa tribute! (Genius in France is my favorite song of all time)
He is a hell of a lot of fun in concert. I got the White & Nerdy shirt I’m wearing at one of them (where he had a Segway w/spinners).

By: Anniee451

Anniee451 — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 17:29:12 +0000

Yes, my information on that one was a zillion years old – apparently what happened was Davies made him re-record it, and the scuttlebutt at the time was it wasn’t going to come out. Guess a person should look stuff up if the last time they heard about something was over 20 years ago.

By: Rokmartian

Rokmartian — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 10:06:34 +0000

Do you mean Yoda? That is on the Dare to be Stupid album. Some time ago when my kids were younger, they would listen to Radio Disney and it was played all the time.

By: Mark

Mark — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 06:32:42 +0000

I remember hearing him on the sunday night Dr. Demento Show on KMET waaaaay back in ‘77 when he did Another One Rides The Bus live from the studio bathroom. He was a complete unknown at the time and Dr. Demento basically discovered him and invited him to perform on the show. The rest is history.

By: Anniee451

Anniee451 — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 21:01:03 +0000

Never listened to his music, eh? By no stretch can he be called stupid or untalented, and his fellow musicians love him to parody them for the most part.

By: Anniee451

Anniee451 — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 20:23:40 +0000

He also tried to do a Star Wars parody on the Kinks’ Lola, but Ray Davies was too high and mighty to give permission. Jerk. I’ve heard the lyrics, and they were really good.

By: Anniee451

Anniee451 — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 20:22:31 +0000

Weird Al is epic win! The man appeals to all ages, and puts on a clean show while still remaining hilarious to adults. Great stuff.

Coolio acted like a total jerk, even after Yankovich apologized.

By: Archon

Archon — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 05:30:51 +0000

Al, Dang. I have seen him live several times- going all the way back to Dare to Be Stupid when I was in HS.

My kids have never liked Al music much, prefering kiddie bubble gum pop crap that they get on Radio Disney… until Guitar Hero / Rock Band came out.

My 7 yr old (who hates almost everything) wanted Eye of the Tiger (for some strange reason) on his Ipod. I did not have it, but I did have Al’s parody – Rocky’s Theme.

Now he has a half dozen Al Songs, mostly of songs they he knows from rockband/ guitar hero, and it is HYSTERICAL listening to him sing along!

I bought myself the Weird Al Show on DVD, and there was a period that was all my kids watched… over and over and over…

He can sing, his band is awsome. They can go from Rock to country to rap to 80’s pop.. You name it, they can do it… and do it WELL.

I love playing an AL song as my students walk in the room, and they get all excited… until they actually hear what is on… Wait, thats not Eminem… what is this??? I gotta do that this week again…

AL ROCKS!

By: Pieter B

Pieter B — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 22:40:00 +0000

I love Weird Al too, but I have to take issue with this statement:

Whether you love him or hate him, Weird Al kicked open a huge door for parodies and music related humor. Kudos to him for that.

Two words: Allan Sherman

By: BigAl1976

BigAl1976 — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 17:32:29 +0000

Weird Al RULES!

UHF is one of my favorite funny movies, his albums rock, and his music makes me laugh when I’m feeling down. AWESOME!!

By: hee hee

hee hee — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 05:36:11 +0000

So, with that as a basis… you aren’t a victim… :-p

By: hee hee

hee hee — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 05:33:55 +0000

I am in mourning for your dead sense of humor… (funeral dirge playing)

By: Waffle-Copter

Waffle-Copter — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 03:53:44 +0000

Naturally. Only Al can reach this level of awesome.

By: wutheringvipercanyon

wutheringvipercanyon — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 03:51:42 +0000

all hail his lol’yness, Weird Al Yankovic!!!

Angry White Boy Polka rules!!!

By: Waffle-Copter

Waffle-Copter — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 03:51:23 +0000

I have adored Weird Al since I was 10. I still have four albums worth of his music on my iPod, I have UHF on DVD, and I’ve been to two concerts. Other kids my age don’t appreciate him as much as they should. It’s a darn shame…….

By: puppatoons

puppatoons — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 02:09:26 +0000

Hear, hear!

My best friend’s birthday is the same as Al’s, and we always celebrate with an honorary cupcake on that day for him. She got to meet him, and he is, indeed, a hell of a nice guy.

By: Will

Will — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 00:40:31 +0000

Not only can he sing and compose, but he can do so across a huge number of music styles. He can do everything from do-wop to rap. Whether or not you like his music (and based on your comments about not being able to come up with original material, you probably haven’t heard very much of it) it’s pretty had to argue that his technical competence is anything less than first rate.

He is probably the most successful novelty artist of all time, making a 30+ year recording career in a genre full of one-hit wonders, and he does it while retaining his integrity and neither pandering nor selling out. It’s pretty hard to accomplish something like that if one is “an idiot” as you say.

By: AngelMax

AngelMax — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 21:49:00 +0000

Amen to that!!!!
I rediscovered him a few months ago, and I can’t get enough.

By: Hopeless Romance

Hopeless Romance — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 21:14:38 +0000

Agreed. That song is amazing. It always cheers me up whenever I’m feeling down.

By: Forge

Forge — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 19:44:40 +0000

Shows what the hell you know Mr. “Anonymous.”

By: Forge

Forge — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 19:43:49 +0000

Changed his look altogether about 10 years ago when he got laser surgery done on his eyes so he didn’t have to wear glasses anymore. And of the twenty-two albums he’s released (some compilations mind you), only just over 30 songs are actually parodies; the rest are polka medleys, style parodies or original compositions like the astoundingly awesome “Hardware Store.”

By: Forge

Forge — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 19:20:17 +0000

Al does very amazingly inspired style-parodies too. And yeah, sophomoric most of the time, but sometimes the angle he goes for in a parody is pretty amazing (like *not* making “Smells Like Nirvana” a song about food, hehe), and his composition and musicianship is always astonishing.

By: Forge

Forge — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 19:14:06 +0000

PHWWWWAAAAHHHHH!!!! I died laughing at that line.

By: Forge

Forge — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 19:12:56 +0000

Two more words: Florence Henderson. (She was in the Amish Paradise video. So cool!!)

By: Forge

Forge — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 19:06:54 +0000

So, you’ve never actually listened to even a single Weird Al song more than in passing, and you have no musical talent yourself, and your idea of a great song is something by Limp Bizkit or Linkin Park, right?

Your opinion notwithstanding, the man is a genius and especially, a musical genius. One only need watch the video of “Dare to be Stupid” (and have a basic idea what Devo was all about, not that I’d expect that of YOU) to see how frighteningly huge his understanding of the world really is. He’s nothing short of amazing.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 17:25:52 +0000

Weird Al is a crime against thought.

By: Al fan

Al fan — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 13:23:26 +0000

Someone didn’t read the other comments about how YES Al DOES write his own stuff.

Making uninformed comments like this make you look stupid.

By: in_a_box

in_a_box — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 12:05:00 +0000

He is awesome, he signed Megan’s poodle, lol.

By: Tim

Tim — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 11:07:10 +0000

A weird-al-freak of a friend talked me into seeing UHF on opening day. “Spatula City” was the only bit that made me crack a grin. I remember yelling at him for wasting my four dollars, when there was a much better movie opening that day. It was the beginning of the end of that friendship. I kid you not.

By: Doc

Doc — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 10:29:31 +0000

Weird Al is an idiot. He can’t sing, he won’t get out of the 80s by the way he dresses, and he can’t even come up with original songs and instead rips off other good songs. It’s amazing what people consider talent these days.

By: Ian

Ian — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 09:31:22 +0000

I only know his hits, and they’re all fairly sophomoric parodies of other songs.
By sophomoric, I mean that they’re fairly direct “take a tune and make up parody lyrics”, which is the sort of thing we did in high school.

He’s good at it, but there was an element of luck that made him stand out from the other people doing similar or better parodies.

The HeeBeeGeeBees from the UK are a case in point: pointedly accurate parodies of styles or artists rather than just new lyrics to pop songs.
Never heard of them? Well, that’s what I mean…

By: hee hee

hee hee — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 00:58:58 +0000

heheheeee!!! I am working on it!

By: Al fan

Al fan — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 00:00:37 +0000

And for the record since SOOO many people say he did songs that he didn’t…I give you both

The official AL song list on his sight
http://www.weirdal.com/catalog.htm

and a not Al list put together by a fan
http://free.house.cx/~eil/etc/notal.html

By: Meg

Meg — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 23:56:57 +0000

well, I stopped looking like a month after I started. and it was like ‘98 when I heard it and I was oblivious to most internet wonders.

By: Meg

Meg — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 23:54:42 +0000

I remember that song from years ago when I was decorating the Christmas tree at my mom’s house. I had thought I had imagined it b/c I could never find it again!

By: Harvey

Harvey — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 23:01:10 +0000

What? No mention of “Christmas at Ground Zero?” That was his most brilliant song/video ever!! And it’s all based on an air raid siren (listen to the background singers throughout the song). Never wrote his own material. pfft.

By: crazy freak

crazy freak — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 20:38:20 +0000

I saw him this year in merriville. I loved the drum solo and the alTV clips!
I hope that all will continue to make great songs for many years! WEIRD AL FOREVER!!!

By: Unformed8

Unformed8 — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 19:07:45 +0000

It about time Weird al got here, he truly is made out of epic win =D

He is made out of 50% win, 50% lol and 50% epic.

Thats 150%!

By: Nick R. Bocker

Nick R. Bocker — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 18:50:42 +0000

Did you play it 27 times?

By: Failerella

Failerella — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 18:02:01 +0000

Even if it were true he never did his own stuff, he’d still be brilliant for his parodies alone. You have have to be smart to do a really good parody, as his are. I like his recent stuff even better than the old but the old stuff is win too.

By: hee hee

hee hee — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 18:01:08 +0000

I just played the video for ‘Another One Rides the Bus’ a bunch of times… my cheeks (facial cheeks for those who are crude) hurt from smiling so much!

By: hee hee

hee hee — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 17:49:22 +0000

SUPPLIES!!!

By: MsMsBurning

MsMsBurning — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 17:48:20 +0000

If it weren’t for Weird Al and Dr. Demento, my life would have been a lot less rich!

By: Bridget

Bridget — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 17:33:10 +0000

“The quality of my life would be greatly reduced if I did not have nostrils.” -Weird Al

Weird Al is awesome! No one does it better. Most of the acts he parodies feel like they’ve finally “made it” when he parodies them.

By: Elle

Elle — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 17:03:58 +0000

I love Weird Al! And once he grew his hair out and shaved his mustache he looks pretty hot. Being a comic nerd and a Billy Joel fan his Ode to a Superhero is definitely my favorite. Well, that or all his polka medleys.

By: Kelzy

Kelzy — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 17:03:43 +0000

The other thing I like about his concerts is during the costume changes he plays clips from shows he’s done, especially “AlTV”. Those are great.
And I had the pleasure of meeting him outside one of his shows (one of the few- if not only- major acts to consistantly put Delaware on their tour stop list. He is a wonderful, truly gracious person, and I love him! <3