Nice

Jeebus. If those lyrics were a "self-test" for nerdiness I'd be about a 8/10.

these songs are great.

My point is that none of the original material is any better than middling, and it's not as if it stands up on its own without the parodies. You're right, popularity has nothing to do with it necessarily, but I'm fairly sure that if we never heard of this guy no one would be calling him a "genius", and I'm also fairly sure without the parody you never hear of this guy.

Hah.

I completely disagree with this. Some of his originals are dark and twisted and come from a Harry Shearer-fucks-Zappa's-rubber-blow-up-poodle headspace.

I think he wouldn't be famous if there were no parodies, but he'd be liked on the level that Loudon Wainwright is liked.

I mean, the guy is funny -- he does the parody song better than anyone, but a super talented genius?

Seriously, how hard is it to find the karaoke/beat-only version of a Chamillionaire song, write new words, and then slap it onto an album?

Todd said he was a genuis. I didn't. He's funny, clever and has spent 25 years knowing exactly what the right songs to parody are at exactly the right moments. And his originals will make any They Might Be Giants fan happy.

Al has some of the best musicians around working with him. He's not Rick Dees, fer crissake. He doesn't slap backing tracks onto albums.

No, no.... Actually, I was just surprised that Brother Fouzone didn't beat you to the originally quoted post.

MF must have been beating off to horse-on-woman (or horse-on-man) porn when he otherwise would have been lambasting you, on an internet message-board...

actually this bit he might have, but probably didn't nick from "MC Escher, The Impossible Rapper" by Momus.

the first part of this statement is pretty obvious. I am pretty sure if you had never posted here or cmj we would never have known who you were either.

And frosted is right, the man is famous because of the parody. However, there are plenty of people that make music that aren't famous that I am sure you may consider a musical genius or even just damn good. And there are many types of genius I suppose. It could certainly be construed as genius in a marketing sense that he became well-known and probably damn wealthy due to his "easy" parody job. At the very least, you gotta respect the dude because even if it is so easy, he did it and made loads of cash from it. You didn't, so at the very least he's more a genius than you.

Regarding the parodies, listen to any zoo crew morning show parody songs or any of the satellite jock prep service "funny" tunes. You will groan and say good god this sucks.

Weird Al makes it look easy, but it's actually quite difficult to come up with new ways to make nerd, fart, food and fat jokes that fit the original tunes.

Again, I use Rick Dees as an example because his people service Premiere Radio, which sends out the "funny" to hundreds of stations. Most of his stuff is so bad or obvious I want to kill the man nearly every day. Al's better than that.

... and until they find his secret illegal porn stash, he's great for kids to listen to.

A kid I mentor loves him, the kid got hit by a car and was in a coma for a week, when he came to it was Weird Al that helped him through the recovery.

Didn't Aural Fixation post something on the old CMJ board to the effect that she was in Hollywood one day and saw Weird Al going into the Hustler store? (This would have been three, even four, years ago.) I could be wrong, but if not, posthummus, you could be very well on to something.

ALERT Gawker at once.

i may even have to track down the original...

"I may have to leave the house"

Good as his originals are, he ain't fit to clap Tom Lehrer's erasers.

no, and no.

this dude is THE WORST.

Weird Al was on the Bob and Tom Show today. let me know if you are interested in getting the podcasts. I was thinking of signing up for a month to get them. I only heard part of the show and it was pretty good.

A not so funny Weird Al clip:

http://www.bobandtom.com/av/laugh_hole/ ... vic_sm.mov

I bought this today and I must say it was definitely worth the wait. It may be cliche but Trapped In The Drive-Thru was worth the price alone. I think Close But No Cigar is my favourite original at the moment.

wha? Pancreas is soooo awesome! Virus Alert holds up really well too.

This disc is going on my Christmas list.

saw a youtube video of his latest - something about being a white rapper. it was about 20 jokes that ive heard about 100 times before strung together over a lame beat.

Again, I'm talking about Al's original songs, not his parodies. His parodies are just cute whereas his originals are often genuinely funny. And his polka medlies verge on genuis.

True, very true. I actually like Virus Alert lots and I found out it is apparently in the style of a group called Sparks, which seems very intriguing.