April Fools! Weird Al Rocks the 80s!

To be honest, I've been thinking about doing this for a few years now.  I've gone back and forth on what kind of April Fool's article I could write, but being a massive Weird Al Yankovic fan, I couldn't really resist talking about his songs, both the parodies and originals.  I became a fan in middle school through a friend at church, and since then, I've been jamming his stuff and enjoying his quirky sense of humor.  Of course, Weird Al has always focused on whatever was mainstream music at the time, so he often does songs in a lot of styles, including pop, jazz, hip hop, and country.  For this article, I'll just focus on his rock songs of the 1980s.  

His first major single famously took The Knack's song "My Sharona" and turned it into an anthem to lunchmeat.  "My Bologna" would set the tone for his many songs about food.  While hearing the riff jammed out on an accordion may have been enough of a gag, he still creates some pretty clever lyrics, which is impressive considering the rather mundane subject matter of the song.

Getting into the stuff on his first album, "I Love Rocky Road" is interesting one.  Adding his accordion to the iconic guitar riff, to say nothing of "Musical Mike" Kieffer and his "magic" hands, the song still retains the fun of the original, with some extra scoops of ice cream on top.  "Buckingham Blues" is just pure blues rock, but feels a little awkward to listen to, now, given what all has since happened to Charles and Diane.  "Happy Birthday" is a very special brand of chaos.  There's something weirdly nihilistic about a song that's about how terrible everything is despite it being a birthday.  And yet, I listen to it every year for my own birthday, as I can't deny it's infectious energy and outright silliness.   Towards the end, we get a very peculiar version of Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust" that's a live recording from 1980, with just Weird Al on his instrument of choice and drummer Jon "Bermuda" Schwartz just pounding on Al's accordion case and making other weird noises.  Finally, there's "I'll Be Mellow When I'm Dead," an original track that isn't necessarily making fun of anything, but is instead an anthem to general weirdness and deliberately not fitting in with the crowd.  Honestly, it's all a lot of fun, and all these songs are still fun to sing along to, despite their age.

Not that has changed at all with his next album, Weird Al Yankovic in 3-D.  While the album benefited from being able to parody the King of Pop with "Eat it," also featuring an explosive guitar solo, the rest of the album does feature some solid rockers.  The original songs include a curious track about tabloid articles called "Midnight Star" which has some great vocal harmonies and arrangements.  This is followed by "That Boy Can Dance," a funny, piano-driven rocker that dwells on a useless dork who somehow can tear up the dancefloor.  The album then ends with "Nature Trail to Hell," lampooning the then popular slasher horror films.  While there hasn't been any claim of it being inspired by any particular artist, I've always felt there was a Toto vibe to the song, between all the screaming and horror samples.

Of there song parodies, there's a rather strange take on "Eye of the Tiger" by Survivor and its association with the Rocky movies.  Here, Al sings about the Stallone character later in his career starting up a meat deli and providing recommendations for sandwich bread.  There's also the first of may polka medleys he would record over the years, this one featuring a number of classic rock songs, ranging from The Doors and The Beatles to Iron Butterfly, Jimi Hendrix, Deep Purple, and Foreigner.

Weird Al's third album Dare to Be Stupid wouldn't have as much rock, but the ones we do have drift into more nerdy territory, with the original "Slime Creatures from Outer Space" being a massive reference to classic sci-fi films, and "Yoda" as his first Star-Wars-Based song, being a parody of "Lola" by the Kinks.  There's also the very peculiar "I Want a New Duck," riffing off of Huey Lewis's big hit about getting better medicinal drugs by changing the subject to one of a frustrating fowl as a pet.  Finally, there's another polka medley, this one feature the likes of ZZ Top, Yes, Twisted Sister, and Quiet Riot.  Overall, these tracks are as fun as the earlier rock tracks, with "Slime Creatures" in particular feeling like it must have been a blast to record.

However, trying to put out an album each year started to wear Al and his band down, so when his fourth album Polka Party! came out, the tracks sound rather weak and uninspired.  "One of Those Days" is an original tune that bounces back and forth between disasters and inconveniences in an amusing blasé manner while being a decent rock song, "Addicted to Spuds" is another food-based parody based on Robert Palmer's "Addicted to Love," "Toothless People" is a rather mean-spirited parody of Mick Jagger's "Ruthless People," and the title track is another polka medley, this time featuring the likes of Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins, INXS, The Rolling Stones, and Tears for Fears.  Despite all the punk rockers on the album's cover, this album really doesn't rock all that much.

Even Worse was a solid recovery, though.  Not only featuring another iconic Michael Jackson parody, but provides some decent rock songs.  "You Make Me," "Velvet Elvis," and "Twister" are all solid style parodies of Oingo Boingo, The Police, and The Beastie Boys, respectively.  As usual, Al and company do a great job at evoking all these different styles.  Of the covers, "Alimony" is an interesting, legal take on Billy Idol's cover of "Mony Mony," but the song that rocks the most is easily the original song "Stuck in a Closet with Vanna White," featuring a catchy little riff, and very strange lyrics about Al's dreams, drifting between various bizarre scenes.  Jim West really gets to flex his guitar playing on that one.

Well, I hope that was as fun for you as it was for me to go back over some of Al's rock-based parodies and songs.  As rock was pretty popular through the 80s, it's no surprise that he would take on a handful of rock songs as part of his humorous efforts.  I know the UHF Soundtrack is also an 80s album, but I didn't include it because I'm planning on doing this again next year, and grouping that one with the 90s albums splits things a little more evenly.