File Under: Love Songs, style parody of Country Music, Original
Music Video: No
Best Lyric: "You're sort of everything I've ever wanted/ You're not perfect, but I love you anyhow/ You're the woman that I've always dreamed of/ Well, not really but you're good enough for now"
I don't want to overrate this song, but I think I am. It might be the best song on the album. I don't think that Al is a very cynical person, but, when he goes into that Zappa-esque frame of mind and creates a cynical love song, it's usually some of his best. It's also a better country song than 90 percent of what was on the radio at that time, which makes it even better in my mind. It's poking fun of that all too common trope of the man getting the woman of his dreams in every love song. This gal is just "good enough for now".
Too many good lyrics in this one.
"And I swear I'm never gonna leave you, darlin'
At least 'til something better comes along"
File Under: Christmas, Original, Style Parody of Phil Spcetor-era Christmas songs
Music Video: YES
Best Music Video Moment: Ronald Reagan
Best Lyric: Too many to mention.
"We can dodge debris while we trim the tree/Underneath the mushroom cloud"
"You might hear some reindeer on your rooftop/ Or Jack Frost on your windowsill/ But if someone's climbing down your chimney/ You better load your gun and shoot to kill"
I'm not joking when I say this is one of the best songs made during/influenced by the Cold War. Easily one of Al's darkest songs, it was actually banned from some radio stations, because they deemed it to be too violent to play. Which was not good for Al considering that this was the only other single on the album besides "Living With A Hernia". I kind of forgot how much I enjoyed it until I just put it on a couple times in a row. It's funny, it's sardonic, it makes me want to play Fallout. I love the Phil Spector-influenced sound too; it gives it that extra push it needs to be a memorable tune on it's own. The video is great with it's pastiche of 50s era Christmas footage and thermonuclear explosions. Ronald Reagan and Bert The Turtle even make an appearance.
So, it's probably his worst album, but that doesn't mean it is the worst album ever. Now, keep in mind, these ratings are just vs. other "Weird Al" Albums. If this were just rated as an album by itself, then it's probably closer to a D. However, there are some obscure greats on here, and the two singles were well-made.
It was his lowest selling album, and it only reached number 177 on the billboard charts, which is pretty dreadful. "In 3-D" made it all the way to 17. No A+ songs on here either. However, it still was nominated for a grammy anyway.
A lot of critics and even Al himself thought that his career might be over after it flopped.
Yankovic was dismayed by the album's lackluster reception. He noted that he "thought it was the end of [his] career". Yankovic explained that "I figured I'd peaked with 'Eat It' and 'Like a Surgeon' and now people were slowly forgetting about me and I was well on my way to obscurity."
The next few years were fraught with guest appearances on TV Shows and even Hollywood Squares to try and maintain some relevancy. Luckily, Al's next album would fare much better.
But, before I move on to that, let's look at some of those other TV appearances between '86 & '88.
File Under: Food, Parody of "Bad" by Michael Jackson
Music Video: YES
Best Music Video Moment: Pinwheel blowing in the wind.
Best Lyric: And my shadow weighs 42 lbs.
What it took for Weird Al to come back for good was a cover of his original target, Michael Jackson. Of course, he risked just being known as "the guy who covers Michael Jackson", but, at this point he, "thought it was the end of his career." When he saw the music video for "Bad", he immediately thought of a sequel to record.
Here's a big blurb from the wikipedia.
He later said, "I was still primarily known as the 'Eat It' guy and I didn't want to become known as the guy who just rides Michael's coattails." He later relented and sought out Jackson for permission. Jackson, a fan of Yankovic's work, had already let Yankovic parody his 1983 hit single "Beat It". When presented with the new potential parody, Jackson not only approved it, but let Yankovic use his own Moonwalker subway set for the music video. Yankovic later presented Jackson with a gold record of Even Worse after the album sold over 500,000 copies. Jackson was so pleased with the song and video, he ordered twelve copies to give to his friends. Yankovic later said, "He doesn't have to let me do this kind of stuff. [...] The only reason he would let me is because he has a great sense of humor."
The music video for the song features a leather-clad Yankovic "expanding to 800 pounds and bouncing around a subway set." To find suitable back-up dancers, ads were placed in Los Angeles newspapers for "Very Fat Dancers". One of the men used in the video was actually a pizza delivery man who had delivered food to the casting offices. Due to the music video, "Fat" became one of Yankovic's biggest hits.[ Although only managing to peak at number 99 on the Billboard Hot 100, the song's music video got extensive play on MTV, which helped the album attain platinum status. In addition, "Fat" was later nominated and won a Grammy Award for Best Concept Music Video at the 1989 Grammy Awards, Yankovic's second Grammy Award.
I'd say it's on par with "Eat It" and, for my personal tastes, exceeds it in most ways.
The next two albums are my favorite Weird Al albums.
When I was young, and I'm talking about in between the ages of like 7-10, (I could probably extend that to 12) "Even Worse" and "Off the Deep End", were probably my most listened to albums ever. We had a cassette tape that had both of the albums on it. "Even Worse" on the first side and "Off the Deep End" was on the B Side. We had a little protable cassette player that I could listen to with headphones, and, when I moved into my brother's old room, his stereo cassette player. I shit you not, I would go to sleep while exclusively listening to these two albums. So, keep that in mind when I'm giving ratings to songs.
Best Lyric: "See, I'm naked in church when I meet a dinosaur/ Try to run, but my feet have been nailed to the floor/ Then a midget pushes me through a revolving door
And I'm back in the very same place I was before"
This is probably one of if not my favorite of Al's original songs. It's funny, and it ROCKS. The guitar solo in this song is actually incredible. (Shoutout to Jim West) And who hasn't had a strange recurring dream before? I know the feeling ot fhe protagonist in this song all too well. I really don't have anything else to say about it. It's just a good song.
File Under: Original, Nonsense Song, Style Parody of Oingo Boingo
Music Video: No (But there's a good Newgrounds-era fanmade one)
Best Lyric: "When I'm with you, I don't know whether I should study Neurosurgery/ or go to see the Care Bears movie"
Al doing another one of his better style parodies. This time it's of Oingo Boingo, another artist whose songs lend themselves to Al's style well. Once again Jim West lays down a great guitar track, the whole band is great, really, and Al delivers some of his strange love lyrics. I think this song could be taken two different ways.
A) The person in question makes him crazy from how much he hates them
B) The person in question makes him crazy from how madly in love them he is.
File Under: Style Parody of George Harrison's "Got My Mind Set On You" (which was a song originally written by Rudy Clark and performed by James Ray)
Music Video: No
Best Lyric: Just the concept of the song is funny.
Whoops, I went out of order. This should have came after Vanna White.
Anyways, the whole concept is making fun of the repetitive nature of the song "Got My Mind Set On You" covered by George Harrison. It's well-executed, and it plainly makes a lot of fun of pop music in general, but it lacks the zaniness of some of Al's more out there parodies.
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