Taken from Weird Al's website.

First, the album title: a parody of gangsta rap group NWA’s debut album “Straight Outta Compton” substituting the South Central ghetto with the white, middle-class suburb that Al grew up in, it slyly pokes fun at the bizarre phenomenon of suburbanites being the primary audience of violent, inner-city street poetry, and sometimes even trying to join their ranks (see: Vanilla Ice, Fred Durst). This carries on through the album itself, with three of the five parodies being of hip-hop songs. The best of them is, weirdly enough, “Trapped in the Drive-Thru,” a send-up of R. Kelly’s “Trapped in the Closet.” Clocking in just seconds short of 11 minutes, it’s Al’s longest, strangest parody ever: a rambling narrative describing a frustrating trip to get some quick dinner, with the occasional long silence and a brief interlude of Al’s band playing “Black Dog” by Led Zeppelin. Apparently the original is supposed to be a “hip-hopera” that tells a continuing story with no chorus, with each song ending on some kind of cliffhanger. As Al told Rolling Stone, “I knew I couldn’t make my R. Kelly parody any more ridiculous or convoluted than the original, but I believed that I could make it more stupid.”

There are some great juicy bits to be found. Take “Pancreas,” the album’s second song; not a parody per se, but one of the “originals” that pay tribute to a whole group; this one is a take-off of the Beach Boys, with Al singing the praises of his favorite internal organ. The lyrics are merely silly on their own, but coupled with the California sunshine-styled music it works like you wouldn’t believe. Listening to Al’s stacked vocal harmonies singing “ You know you gotta flow, flow, flow, pancreatic juice/ Flow, flow into the duodenum” and “Insulin, glucagon/ Comin’ from the islets of Langerhans” over a ukulele, accordion, and doo-wop singing in the song’s coda is one of the most absurdly sublime pleasures I’ve had in some time.

Following that is another favorite in “Canadian Idiot,” making fun of Green Day’s “American Idiot” along with, well, Canadians, albeit ironically. “They all live on donuts and moose meat/ And they leave their house without packing heat/ Never even bring their guns to the mall,” he yells in mock defiance. Call it anti-anti-Canadianism. Ultimately he’s taking a jab at American trigger-happiness, especially with the closing lyrics, “It’s gotta mean they’re up to something/ So quick, before they see it coming/ Time for a pre-emptive strike.”

The best is saved for last, however: a loose parody of “We are the World.” The original was recorded as a collaboration of some forty pop musicians in order to raise money and awareness to fight world hunger. The joke in this satiric sequel is that musicians today have come together to fight another pervasive evil: illegally downloaded music. Did I mention the title is “Don’t Download This Song”? With that and such lyrics as “Don’t take away money from artists just like me/How else can I afford another solid gold Humvee?” Al brilliantly makes fun of self-righteous musicians like Lars Ulrich who had the gall to say piracy was taking food out of their kids’ mouths.

Regarding musical piracy, the content of this album makes the strongest case against it possible, not only by virtue of being good, but also by being filled with extra stuff that you actually want to look at. The other side (it’s a DualDisc DVD) starts with a 5.1 stereo mix of the whole album, with or without vocals for karaoke; alas, my computer won’t show the subtitles, and the songs have a tendency of getting stuck part-way through. But that’s ultimately a minor detail. The real goods are in the music videos, six in all. They’re all for the “original” songs (except for “Don’t Download This Song”) and feature work from some big names in animation, such as Ren and Stimpy creator John Kricfalusi and Seth Green of Cartoon Network’s “Robot Chicken.” Top that off with a 10 minute video on the making of this awesome album, and you’ve got a steal for $18. Don’t download these songs.

[Incidentally, you can download some songs, including a track that was left off the album because of a record company dispute (a parody of James Blunt’s “Your Beautiful” entitled “You’re Pitiful”), at Weird Al’s official webpage and (sigh) his Myspace page.]