:: Thursday, May 22, 2003 ::

It's been pointed out to me that I spend to much time writing about megan in the blog and some people don't want to read it anymore. I can sort of see where they're coming from, since it would lead to a lot of unintentional depressing messages sent to all my single friends out there, or something. So let's start off by doing something really lazy, pasting my whole Poodle Hat review from THCHP!

It’s been four years- four long, long years. Running with scissors was the first Weird Al album I experienced as a fan with extreme anticipation and pleasure with the product, and I’m feeling the exact same way about Poodle Hat. Ever since my best friend Nathan introduced me to Weird Al’s unique blend of comedy music in the mid-90s, I’ve been hooked. It was witty, catchy, hilarious, and the parodies were dead on and meticulously executed. Being the kid I was with no financial obligations like games, a girlfriend, or anything of the like, I started to amass a huge weird al collection. Maybe not as huge as some nerds in this country, but compared to everybody I know I’d have to call myself a little extreme. At this point I have over 25 rare 45s, 4 LPs, every single album on CD, the box set, music videos, UHF (VHS and DVD), hours of recorded TV appearances and features, posters, a hat, a shirt, and God knows what else. Now that I’ve established the points of anticipation and being a big fan, let’s get right onto the review of Poodle Hat!

Note: I’ve never actually sat down and tried to review a musical album in words before, so bear with me. I’ll break the album down song by song with my own editorializing, and a ranking on a scale of 1-10 with .5 increments, 10 being the absolute epitome of weird al sexcellence.

1. Couch Potato (parody of “lose yourself” by Eminem) – For the first time that I know of, an artist has granted Al only half-permission to parody their work. Most allow music videos to accompany the parody if desired by Al, or just refuse the mockery of their work altogether. This time however, Eminem is worried that a video of “Couch Potato” will ruin the song’s important moral integrity, or something. Whatever. One would think that after an entire TV-based greatest hits album Al would run out of ways to spin-off the theme. No way! Of course everything is perfectly in sync with this parody, and there are a few jabs at the seemingly-stale television industry. I particularly enjoy the line “CSI: Boise and Touched By an Uncle sound pretty lame ‘n’ So does Everybody Tolerates Raymond.” Overall it’s a nice jab at Eminem’s blend of white-boy angst rap. Oh but the best of that is yet to come. Final Score: 8.5

2. Hardware Store (Al original) – Wow, where do I begin? After playing the album through about 3 times, this song began to grow on me, and quick. This song definitely has the best original lyrics on the whole album. Leave it up to Al to turn something so bland as taking a trip to the hardware store into a crazy-obsessive fast paced blend of rhyming genius. Not only is it catchy, but it has the best part in any song every if impressive-memorization is your thing. He holds a note for about 30 seconds while rambling off over 60 items he’s gonna snatch up in this store. Pure genius. This one’s probably the best original song of Al’s on the album. Final Score: 9.5

3. Trash Day (parody of “hot in herre” by Nelly) – I don’t know if it’s because of the material he’s parodying, or the slightly dwindling lyrics, but this song under-delivers in a few ways. There’s nothing very clever about the lyrics, it’s just a straight up parody that makes a pretty good jab at Nelly (that doesn’t take much effort though, honestly). Of course, I could never come up with something this good but still I have expectations from Al and I think it was his choice of song to Parody that did this one in. Final Score: 5

4. Party at the Leper Colony (Al original) – There are some songs in this universe where you hear the title and don’t even question the song. It’s just so completely random that nothing could hold it back from glory. Ladies and Gentlemen, THIS is one of those songs. I spent the most time originally with this song, in particular to pick up all the little jokes that are dropped on listeners the entire way. Unlike A Complicated Song for example, this one goes for the short, one or two line humor instead of a hilarious story format. It doesn’t matter though, because both are equally hilarious. Little slices of lyrical genius such as “There’s a guy in the hot tub I don’t know who/ Wait a minute, it looks like stew!” where Al’s strange humor pushes your guts to a point where they won’t stop contorting from laughter. This one’s a keeper. Final Score: 9.0

5. Angry White Boy Polka (trademark polka remix of today’s popular artists) –The second I read this as one of the song titles, I couldn’t stop saying “YES! YES! YES!” in my mind. With all the angsty crap drenching the music industry recently, we desperately need Al to jump in and knock it all down back to the ground, if not for only five minutes and three seconds. It sounds exactly like past polkas found on almost every single one of his past albums, but I’m not complaining. Artists who were used in this song take note- there’s a reason why you were spoofed in this song! Final Score: 9.0

6. Wanna Be Ur Lovr (Al original) – What the hell is this? I’ll tell you, its a few dozen crazy cliché pick up lines sang in a mellow-tempo fashion. Maybe it’s just me, but this one only makes me crack a smile a few times. Perhaps it’s just the fact that I’ve heard many of these clichés before and even if he’s presenting it in a style that’s supposed to deliver in a mocking fashion, they still aren’t really great. It’s not all bad, however. I enjoyed quips like “Your eyes are bluer than the water in my toilet” and “You must have fallen from heaven/ That would explain how you messed up your face.” It’s not bad by a far stretch, much better than the nearly garbage status Trash Day. Final Score: 7

7. A Complicated Song (parody of “complicated” by Avril Lavigne) – This is one of those songs where you play it for friends and await until their eyes light up and they burst out laughing, and join in because you know exactly what point in the song they must have reached. This is easily the best parody on the whole album; Al even said he wrote over 20 ideas down and decided to just combine the best three for the final version! Opposite of Party at the Leper Colony, A Complicated Song takes the route of comedy through a hilarious short story, if one just takes the time to sit and listen a little more carefully. I don’t want to spoil this song by telling you some of the lyrics- buy the album to hear this one yourself! Awesome work. Final Score: 10

8. Why Does This Always Happen to Me? (Al original) – I originally skipped over this song a bit, but now it’s warmed up on me. A huge part of this is the fact that Al got his good friend and amazingly talented pianist Ben Folds to play with him on it! This could easily be a serious, chart-worthy Ben Folds single if Al hadn’t thrown in some crazy lyrics. I’m glad he did though, because the three stories he sings (just like in A Complicated Song) are certainly hilarious. I’m always a stickler for singing about horrendous violence in a cheery tone. Final Score: 8.0

9. Ode to a Superhero (parody of “piano man” by Billy Joel) – Al did the same thing with Don Mclean’s “American pie” on his last album; parody a classic song that he missed out on doing ones his career began to skyrocket. The lyrics in this one aren’t the funniest, but by far the cleverest. Every single line seamlessly works with Joel’s original lyrics. The accordion and instruments are spot on, as well. Nobody can sling out lyrics as perfect for the original song like Al, plain and simple. Final Score: 8.5

10. Bob (Al original) – Here it is folks, the major surprise on the whole album. The first couple of times I listened to this song unaided by lyrics (it’s absolute hell on your brain) I dismissed it as Weird Al just being very, very…weird. Thankfully THC helped me point out exactly where the genius in this song is interwoven. Let’s look at a lyrical example: “Go hang a salami, I’m a lasagna hog!” Did you catch it? How about another: “No devil lived on” or “A dog, a panic, in a pagoda!” They’re all palindromes. Read them backwards. Yep! I was a little disheartened to find that almost all of these palindromes have been discovered before and Al is simply using them, but a few are homespun by al and I have a new level of respect for him just by the fact that he pulled it off so well. It’s short, it’s sweet, and it’s genius. Whoever only listens to Al’s parodies is musically hanging themselves. Final Score: 9.0

11. Ebay (parody of “I Want it That Way” by the Backstreet Boys) – It’s a little late, but so funny that I don’t seem to care. You have to keep in mind that he has free-roam on any of the pop songs he’s missed since his last album in 1999. Nevertheless, the lyrics fit perfectly, about as well as Ode to a Superhero except with a modern song. The scary thing about this song, is that I have a weird feeling deep inside of that the items Al mentions in this song he actually FOUND on Ebay and used them in the song. Maybe we’ll never know, but it makes up for a great laugh. “Wanna buy a Kleenex used by Dr. Dre!/ Bought it on Ebay.” Final Score: 9.0

12. Genius In France (Al original) – I don’t know too much about Frank Zappa (he named his daughter Moon Unit and he sings that Valley Girl song among a lot of other weird, weird stuff), so I’ll just have to judge this song based on it’s content. Clocking in at about nine minutes, and woven in a completely random style, unfortunate comparisons of this to Albuquerque first come to mind. I say unfortunate because Albuquerque is approximately 2727272727 times better than this. I applaud it’s random style, and the crazy, unrestricted use of transition sounds definitely drench it in character. For some odd reason however, I don’t find the whole “let’s insult the French” attitude funny. Amusing, yes, but not really funny. Some of my friends really like this song however, so it must just be my taste to a certain extent. They’re not reviewing the song, though! Final Score: 6.5

Hang in with me, we’re almost done! And you just thought the album ended with the songs, tsk tsk. Maybe for you that pirated it it does, but for those of us who actually paid for the album are treated with some really sweet Enhanced CD features. For starters, there’s about a 10 minute clip of Weird Al offering commentary over old film reels of his childhood. All of it is stuff that I’ve never seen, so it hasn’t been on any VH1/MTV/anywhere special that I know of. Very cool indeed. There’s about 16 photos from the album photoshoot, as well as lyrics that scroll so you can sing along with every song on the album. Coolest of all, perhaps, are the bonus mixes. Want to practice your singing skills along with Hardware Store? Try the vocals only version! There’s also instrumental versions of all of the original songs on the album, and a very nice version of Why Does This Always Happen To Me featuring only Al and Ben Folds on piano. Very cool Al, thanks!

So there you have it, I’ve happily spent my afternoon delaying exam studies to bring you all a severely extensive review of Weird Al Yankovic’s new album, Poodle Hat. Overall I would have to give this album a 9.5, ranking among his other gems of albums In 3-D, Even Worse, and Running With Scissors. So what the crap are you waiting for? GO BUY POODLE HAT NOW!

:: Floydthebarber 5/22/2003 04:19:00 PM [+] ::
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