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"Weird Al" Yankovic: Songs
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"Weird Al" Yankovic ranks as the most famous musical-parody act around. Al's bracing wit has always found sure footing in hilarious videos that back up his songs, which invariably revolve around food, religion, disease … and more meals! This video offers a glimpse of the "Weird Al" video career to date, including promos for "Fat," "Eat It," "Like a Surgeon," "Amish Paradise," "Smells Like Nirvana" and more. Oh, lard!
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Some of Yankovic's original songs are pastiches or "style parodies", for which he chooses a band's entire body of work to honor/parody, rather than any single hit by that band. Such bands include Devo with "Dare to Be Stupid", Talking Heads with "Dog Eat Dog", Frank Zappa with "Genius in France", Nine Inch Nails with "Germs", or most recently, charity records with "Don't Download This Song".[32] Others are style parodies in the style of a genre of music, rather than a specific band (for example, country music with "Good Enough For Now").
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Like all novelty artists, Yankovic was vulnerable to extinction by the middle of the decade as styles changed and the fickle musical landscape continued to churn. However, he avoided what many thought would be a career lapse with the release of another hit album, 1988's Even Worse. Buoyed by the song "Fat", which took a shot at familiar target Michael Jackson's recent "Bad", the album proved that Yankovic had what it took to endure as a relevant though silly artist.
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Yankovic quickly emerged as a staple of the Demento playlist, recording a prodigious amount of tongue-in-cheek material throughout his high school career. After graduation, he studied architecture; while attending California Polytechnic State University, he ... joined the staff of the campus radio station, first adopting the nickname "Weird Al" and spinning a mixture of novelty and New Wave hits. In 1979, the success of the Knack's monster hit "My Sharona" inspired Yankovic to record a parody dubbed "My Bologna"; not only was the song a smash with Demento fans, but it even reached found favor with the Knack themselves, who convinced their label Capitol to issue the satire as a single.
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[I]t's not hard to circulate a song these days, and Yankovic has helped that process along by making an MP3 of the track available for free download on his Web site. It may not appear on Yankovic's new album, but "You're Pitiful" will still swirl around in cyberspace long after Blunt's original recedes from memory.
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In addition to finishing the lyrics, Yankovic is working closely with his creative staff to develop a video for the song that will remain true to his unique vision. Proper execution of the video, he says, is crucial, as the visuals must "breathe life into" the song's irreverent depiction of caffeine-fueled mayhem.
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