New Album Hits #1 | First Time in his Career
By Mitchell Parrish
I’m an enormous “Weird” Al Yankovic fan. Always have been. I remember using Napster to download “That’s your Horoscope”, “Albuquerque,” “The Night Santa Went Crazy” and many more of his favorites. I even went out and bought “Running With Scissors” as a 12 year old to feel like I was “supporting ” an artist I love.
Yes, I said artist. “Weird” Al is indeed an artist– and an amazing one at that. His ability to transform pop smash hits into equally catchy parodies is unparalleled. And the longevity of his career is approaching Grateful Dead status– well maybe not quite that level, but hey he’s got a number 1 album for the first time in his 30 year career. The release of “Mandatory Fun” proved once again that Weird Al is the king of musical comedy.
Prior to the release, Weird Al tried something new: he released one music video of his songs every day for eight days. He was hopeful that one or two of them would go viral for a day and help boost album sales and get his name out. Well it worked. All of his videos blew up, with total views over 60 million. Rolling Stone magazine was all over it, as were countless other influential music sites and zines. He told RS: “Things burn really quickly, things tend to go viral for a day, and I figure, ‘Well, ok, I’ll let each of my videos go viral for day,'” Yankovic said. “Nowadays everybody’s trying to figure out what works, and I’m not like every other artist. I’m a special case and there’s really no precedent. So I’m just trying to see what works and this seemed like a fun thing to try.”
Perhaps my favorite is “Word Crimes”, the parody of the “almost rape-y” (Al’s words) song “Blurred Lines.” Al is particularly proud of the fact that he turned this racy hit into a song that could be used in a 2nd grade classroom as a part of a “hip” grammar excercize.
“Foil”, the parody of Lorde’s hit “Royals” is also genius. The video makes you feel like you are watching an infomercial trying way to hard to convince you to buy their aluminum foil.
Make sure you watch at least a few of these videos. Whether you are an avid pop music fanatic, or think that Pharrell needs to learn what a “change” is in a song, you will enjoy “Mandatory Fun.”