Weird Al Yanjovic - In 3D
#377
1984 Housekeeping (we missed another one!)
Weird Al Yankovic
In 3D
4.25 out of 5
Highlights:
Eat It
I Lost on Jeopardy
That Boy Could Dance
It’s really hard to listen to any Michael Jackson music lately. I’ve never been a fan but the HBO documentary just made everything MJ worse.
So, starting off with a parody that was ubiquitous in 84 is a challenge. It’s filled with beaches and burps and farts and is kind of disgusting.
There was debate as to whether we should include Al after just the first record and I say yes. Not even Allan Sherman was able to sell parody records with the consistency of Al. The 80s were big and ugly and colorful and...weird. Truth be told this album is a hoot. While I think Mojo Nixon does better with his tabloid screed “Debbie Gibson is Pregnant”, Al finds all the soft points of America’s garbage news. That people believe things like “Midnight Star” is precisely why we need Yankovic.
Not mentioning Cousin Oliver on “The Brady Bunch” is egregious but there’s fine work on The Greg Kihn cover and the extraordinary Polka track.
And that’s just Side one.
A lot of what Al does on songs like “Buy Me a Condo” & Mr. Popeil is point out band’s conceits. Recreating an artists sound is much like doing an impression. In a way it’s impossible to look at that artist the same way again.
He does it with love but the effect is actually devastating.
The smartest thing Al did was surround himself with guys who could play and understood that the way to make the joke work was to have fun while playing their hearts out.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/in-3-d/250495308
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