I am a really big “Weird Al” Yankovic fan, and I have been since I was 10 years old. I own all of his albums on CD, I’ve seen him live 3 times, and I can recite Albuquerque line for line. I think Al and his band are all musical geniuses, just very very talented people. That being said… I don’t really think Al’s parodies got that great until his 1996 album Bad Hair Day.

Let me explain. His original music has pretty much always been pretty great, save for a few songs here or there that I’m not super into. But I think the things he’s really known for, his parodies, are mostly lackluster until Bad Hair Day. I believe a lot of the humor on Al’s earlier albums lays the “weird” factor on a little thick, to the detriment of their actual humor or wit. Songs like “The Brady Bunch”, “I Want A New Duck”, “Isle Thing”, “Addicted to Spuds”, the list goes on and on… very uninteresting, not creative songs that work better as funny titles than they do actual songs. A lot of them reuse ideas (not even just the food songs), like “The Brady Bunch”, “I Can’t Watch This”, and “Achy Breaky Song” are all about how the narrator doesn’t like whatever popular, kinda-annoying thing rhymes with the title or is relevant to the time it was released. To be fair, prior to BHD, Al was putting out an album a year. That’s a LOT of parodies being written, so I imagine some less-than-developed ideas had to be put out just to meet these yearly release windows. But the improvement in song quality is pretty instantly apparent with BHD. “Amish Paradise” is a top-10 Al parody, and the other parodies on the album are a lot more creative than what was heard on albums prior. Going forward, most of his parodies were more interesting ideas than just “the title rhymes with something odd”.

I really hate his food parodies. I think they’re the most contrived shit ever written and I’m so glad he stopped doing them after Alapalooza (his worst album). Bad Hair Day and onward, while not all perfect, are leagues better than albums like Alapalooza or Even Worse. Al was really close to writing a few shitty parodies on his later albums, like “I’m In Love With The Skipper” or “Make It So”, parodies of “I’m N Luv (Wit A Stripper)” and “Let It Go” respectively (the first one being about Gilligan’s Island and the second being about Star Trek). Those ideas suck but he didn’t make them so it doesn’t really matter.

Now, like I said earlier, Al’s original songs have pretty much always been great. “Biggest Ball of Twine In Minnesota” is a top-5 song. Like, in general, not just within Al’s catalog. “Dare To Be Stupid”, the namesake of the album it’s on, is one of my favorite songs he’s ever made. I really just don’t like his earlier parodies much at all.

Here are my favorite Al originals:

• I’ll Be Mellow When I’m Dead
• Midnight Star
• Dare To Be Stupid
• This Is The Life
• Good Enough For Now
• You Make Me
• Good Old Days
• UHF
• The Biggest Ball of Twine In Minnesota
• Airline Amy
• You Don’t Love Me Anymore
• Everything You Know Is Wrong
• I Remember Larry
• My Baby’s In Love With Eddie Vedder
• Your Horoscope For Today
• Truck Drivin’ Song
• Albuquerque
• Hardware Store
• Why Does This Always Happen To Me
• Genius In France
• Pancreas
• Virus Alert
• Close But No Cigar
• Don’t Download This Song
• Skipper Dan
• If That Isn’t Love
• My Own Eyes
• Mission Statement

I just wanted to talk about Weird Al. Thanks for reading my thoughts