File under: Parody of James Brown's "Living In America"
Music Video: YES
Best Music Video Moment: Al's James Brown dance moves.
Best Lyric: "He took my trousers off, told me to cough"
It actually starts off with a good song. Al's James Brown is spot on, and the video is great too. The subject matter is also pretty funny for anyone that has had to deal with the affliction of a hernia or any abdominal affliction for that matter.
Best Lyric: "Well, do I smell jelly donuts? This is my lucky day/ I'll have some coffee with a carcinogenic sweetener"
One thing should be clear. Al Yankovic is an intelligent man. He graduated high school at 16 as the valedictorian of his class and he went on to get a degree in architecture from Cal Poly. He decided he didn't like architecture though, so he took a few different options. He tried applying for Mcdonald's, but was told that he was overqualified, so he took a desk job at a radio station in California. Suffice to say that Al understands a lot of the underpinnings of American society and the culutral nuanace of his satirization. Up unitl this point, his parodies had been treated for mostly the comedic intent, which they displayed. A fair way to evaluate his music; however, I think this song shows a willingness to engage with a more critical view of society that Al is not always given credit for. This satirical view of the American workplace is very Office Space-esque. To complement the subject matter, Al chose to do a style parody of the Talking Heads, which found some of the same targets for there own songs. Anyways, it's an underrated song in his catalog, and a fun one to listen to for me. Kind of in the same vein as "Mr. Popeil" it's crazy to hear how well he picks up on some Talking Heads sounds.
File Under: Food, Parody of "Addicted To Love" by Robert Palmer
Music Video: No
Best Lyric: "You planned a trip to Idaho (Woah-oh)/ Just to watch potatoes grow"
This song is marginally better than "I Want A New Duck" from the previous album. This song is actually mixed better than the Robert Palmer though. Instrumentally it's a pretty good one.
Best Lyric: "Then late at night, just before I go to bed/The world blows up and now everybody's dead"
This is a pretty middling song about a guy who's just having a bad day. An ever-increasing amount of things go wrong ending up with the world blowing up and everyone dying. Sounds like 2020. The instrumental sounds kind of like an NRBQ Bar Rock vibe. It's fine, but nothing special.
"Sledgehammer" by Peter Gabriel,
"Sussudio" by Phil Collins,
"Party All The Time" by Eddie Murphy,
"Say You, Say Me" by Lionel Richie,
"Freeway of Love" by Aretha Franklin,
"What You Need" by INXS,
"Harlem Shuffle" by The Rolling Stones,
"Venus" as covered by Bananarama, originally by Shocking Blue,
"Nasty" by Janet Jackson,
"Rock Me Amadeus" by Falco,
"Shout" by Tears For Fears,
"Papa Don't Preach" by Madonna
Music Video: No
Best Cover: Nasty by Janet Jackson
Some questionable covers and some really good ones. The strong ones are great though like Sledgehammer and Nast Boys, so I'll still give it an A- rating. The breakdown for the Harlem Shuffle is pretty great too.
File Under: TV, song parody of "Who's Johnny" by El Debarge
Music Video: No
Best Lyric: "There he goes, he gives me goose bumps/ When he says...(Hey-O-Hey-Hey-O!)"
Ok, I hadn't heard this one in ages, and it's so strange that it is pretty funny. Weird choice of song to cover, and it's essentially a love letter to Ed Mcmahon, not even Johnny Carson. I was planning on giving this one a lower rating, but even I can be surprised sometimes.
File Under: Nonsense Song, Original (But Intro is "Father Christmas" by The Kinks)
Music Video: No
Best Lyric: "Use my razor to shave your legs or eat crackers in bed/ Stomp the poodle 'til it's flat/ You can even shove a six-inch railroad spike through my head/ I can learn to live with that/ But now I'm begging you down on my bended knees/ Oh, honey, please, don't wear those shoes"
This is what I'll begin referring to as one of Al's "nonsense songs". Something that was made for the express purpose of saying as many strange things as he possibly could in one song. This one in particular is about some guy who is really hung about his girlfriend's choice of footwear. I mean, they mustve been some really bad looking shoes, because apparently he'd rather have a railroad spike shoved in his head than see her go out them. He's either a great companion or completelyl psychotic. Instrumentally the song apparently takes some cues from The Kinks, but it's only the intro. The rest is kind of They Might Be Giants sounding, but they didn't exist yet, so IDK.
File Under: Parody of "Ruthless People" by Mick Jagger
Music Video: No
Best Lyric: "You don't wanna have to wind up/ Eating all of your food through a straw"
Yeah, this is a song with another bad backstory like "Girls Just Wanna Have Lunch". Why parody this relatively obscure Mick Jagger song? Well, Al made a miscalculation.
The final parody recorded for the album was "Toothless People", a play on Mick Jagger's "Ruthless People", which was recorded on August 29, 1986. The song, about elderly people who are missing their teeth, was written after Yankovic heard it would be the theme to the 1986 film Ruthless People. Assuming the song would be a hit, Yankovic requested and received permission from Jagger to record a parody version. Jagger's song, however, was never a hit, but because Jagger had "approved" the parody, he decided failing to produce it would be an "insult" to the artist.
So, essentially, this song remained on the album, because Al is a nice guy. However, that doesn't make this song any better, and it's the worst on the album for me. The song is not bad, but it's just completely forgettable.
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
