REVIEWS:
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COMMENTS
First off, I'd like to say that I enjoyed reading your reviews. I'm a big AL fan from way back, and it's nice to see more people thinking critically about his work. (And doesn't *that* sound pretentious? Anyway...)
1. Buckingham Blues: If I understand correctly, this one was supposed to be a parody of John Cougar's "Life Goes On (Jack & Diane)" that the approval fell through on. I'll bet that's why it's less good than it could be.
2. Such A Groovy Guy: Didn't like? Sorry to hear it. A little dated, but falls into the same category as "Waffle King" and "This Is The Life."
3. This Is The Life: The movie you want is "Johnny Dangerously."
4. Toothless People: Mick Jagger asked Al when he was going to parody one of his songs. This was the result. The Hot Rocks Polka was Al's attempt to do
the concept correctly.
5. I Was Only Kidding: Maybe it's just me, but I keep hearing this one as a Jello Biafra/Dead Kennedy's homage.
6. The Night Santa Went Crazy: Isn't the musical structure of this one a lift from "Black Gold" by Soul Asylum?
Can't wait to see your Poodle Hat review.
Jason
(reviewed by Rich Bunnell)
This album is what some might call Al's "roots" album, as he relies far more on his accordian than he would on any of his subsequent albums. Additionally, aside from the polished Toni Basil parody "Ricky" (based around a hilarious "I Love Lucy" sendup), Al and his band don't try too heavily at all to reproduce the music of the original songs note-for-note. The music of the parodies is usually an accordian-and-guitar deconstruction of the original song's melody, something which Al would later relegate to his polka medleys but uses in full force here. Of the parodies, the Stevie Nicks parody "Stop Draggin' My Car Around" is an amusing narrative, "I Love Rocky Road" and "My Bologna"(sending up Joan Jett and the Knack respectively) are rather simplistic but entertaining food-based parodies, and "Another One Rides The Bus" is hilarious despite the primitive recording sound (the recording is the original live recording Al performed on the Dr. Demento show, with his future drummer Jon "Bermuda" Schwartz banging on his accordian case for the percussion).
The originals, as would curse Al for basically his entire career, are hit-and-miss; "Happy Birthday," "The Check's In The Mail" and "I'll Be Mellow When I'm Dead" are very well-written and delightfully cynical, but "Buckingham Blues" is boring and seems to have lyrics which were just randomly thrown in to fill up space ("I said 'Hey, Lady Di! Tell me where'd you get them shoes?'"), and "Such A Groovy Guy" is perhaps the most pointless and go-nowhere original that Al's ever writ. Still, a very funny album, and a very good one at that; buy it for a clean old good time and a glimpse of what Al was like before he polished his sound and achieved major success.
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(reviewed by Rich Bunnell)
Here, Al drastically altered his formula to the one that he's pretty much used up to this day, which is primarily because this is the album that brought him success through the clever Michael Jackson parody "Eat It." Sure, the title could've been thought up (and probably was) by every four-year-old in the country, but I doubt that those four-year-olds could've set the entire song to lyrics as good as Mr. Yankovic's. "I Lost On Jeopardy" puts a game show spin on the classic Greg Kihn tune (who does a classic rock morning show here in the SJ Bay Area and is absolutely hilarious), "The Brady Bunch" is a bizarre take on Men Without Hats' irritating hit "The Safety Dance," and "King Of Suede" is sort of a forced parody to capitalize on the recent Police hit it's based on ("King Of Pain") but it's really amusing and the music itself, the song being one of the Police's better Synchronicity tracks, is fine anyway.
"Midnight Star," "Buy Me A Condo" and "Mr. Popeil" are all grrrrrrreat and catchy original songs (the last one being Al's first style parody, a dead-on imitation of the B-52's, girl back-up singers and all), and "Polkas On 45" establishes the Al tradition of the polka medley, this one weaving together Foreigner's "Hot Blooded," Iron Butterfly's "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida," Jimi Hendrix's "Hey Joe," Talking Heads' "Burning Down The House," and a crapload of other songs into a four-minute polka. Hilarious stuff, and it's one of Al's traditions which really hasn't worn thin over the sixteen years since he first did it.
Of course, the album isn't perfect by any means-- "That Boy Could Dance" is a nondescript Billy Joel-style piano rocker, and the Survivor parody "Theme From Rocky XIII" is one of those parody ideas that you write down but you're not actually supposed to write or record. Buy the album anyway; people tend to like this the most of his non-debut albums, probably because it came first. And the movie-theme wimpy death-metal "Nature Trail To Hell" might just make the entire album worth getting on its own-- just the music by itself is hilarious.
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(reviewed by Rich Bunnell)
The previous album's formula is repeated with only okay results. The parody classics here include the hit Madonna parody "Like A Surgeon" (actually suggested by the Material Girl herself) and the Star Wars send-up "Yoda" (quite a bit more humor-oriented than its 1999 companion "The Saga Begins" due to the fact that it actually has jokes in it), and the stream-of-conscious Devo-styled title track, the cynical torch ballad "One More Minute," and the paranoid sci-fi of "Slime Creatures From Outer Space" (which steals its musical feel rather blatantly from Thomas Dolby's "Hyperactive") are all hiiiiiilarious, but the rest of this stuff is pretty subpar considering the quality of the last couple of albums. "I Want A New Duck" is sort of funny actually, but it's hard to let Al get away with doing such a stupid parody of a crappy Huey Lewis song, "Cable TV" has boring lyrics and a middle-of-the-road melody, and "Girls Just Wanna Have Lunch" was a parody that Al was forced to make by the record execs (they wanted a Cyndi Lauper parody) and it shows.
"This Is The Life" is at least halfway decent, however, throwing in random loud guitar solos, tap-dancing, and breakdance rhythms over a '20s-style musical backdrop, and the polka medley "Hooked On Polkas" is even better than the last one since it spends its time making fun of crappy mid-'80s pop songs ("State Of Shock" by the Jacksons, "We're Not Gonna Take It" by Twisted Sister, "What's Love Got To Do With It" by Tina Turner, "99 Luftballoons" by Nena) thus strengthening the comedic impact. It's more fun to hear songs you hate torn apart than ones you love-- at least, in my opinion. Still, this one doesn't live up to the last pair of Al-bums and was the beginning of a three-album stumble by the prolific Mr. Yankovic.
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COMMENTS
This album is pretty weak in retrospect, even though I loved it when I was a kid. It has some very bright spots, but a lot of it (especially side two) is really corny and childish. "One More Minute" is undoubtedly a standout--possibly Al's single most hysterical moment ever, actually. "Yoda" and "Like a Surgeon" are well-done parodies, too. And the title track is one of those original Weird Al songs that isn't necessarily that funny per se, but is still a good song with a solid hook. "Hooked on Polkas" and the cover of the George of the Jungle theme make for nice, modest goodies. Unfortunately, though, some of the parodies like "I Want a New Duck" and "Girls Just Wanna Have Lunch" have aged HORRIBLY. And "Slime Creatures from Outer Space" and "Cable TV" are two of those songs that make a lot of people HATE Al's original stuff, even though some of it is his best. So, yeah, I can agree with the 6 for this one, even though it is noteworthy as the home of the most Weird Al singles on one LP, including the not-already-mentioned "This Is the Life," an enjoyable lounge crooner-style piece that was a soundtrack installment for some movie with Danny DeVito and Michael Keaton, or something . .
(reviewed by Rich Bunnell)
About half of this album is brilliant and as a whole the album reaches higher high points than Dare To Be Stupid, yet the album is counterbalanced by a lot more completely worthless songs than Al had ever let onto an album. "Addicted To Spuds"? "Here's Johnny"? "Toothless People"? Who freakin' cares about Robert Palmer or El DeBarge? And the original Jagger song "Ruthless People" sucked anyway and wasn't even a hit, so what's the purpose of parodying it? Plus, the country song "Good Enough For Now" is probably the most overrated song Al ever pushed out, a boring country-fried ballad-- I get the joke ("You're almost everything I ever wanted, you're not perfect, but I love you anyhow") but that doesn't mean that I think it's funny, and placing it behind country/western music doesn't help it at all.
Good stuff lines the halls elsewhere. "Living With A Hernia" is a completely stupid idea and a parody of a James Brown song that no one remembers, but it's really friggin' funny, "Dog Eat Dog" is a dead-on style parody of Talking Heads about working class life ("Sometimes I tell myself, 'This is not my beautiful stapler!' Sometimes I tell myself, 'This is not my beautiful chair!'"), "One Of Those Days" describes an apocalyptic day in Al's life over a hilariously bouncy tune, and "Christmas At Ground Zero," Al's sadistic holiday favorite, somehow creates a timeless Christmas melody without ripping off any particular song and has an air-raid siren playing in the background for the entire course of the song. It's sadistic, it's tasteless, and it's hilarious. The title track is another uniformly-good polka medley and "Don't Wear These Shoes" is a catchy pop-rocker, so it's too bad that those four lame dogs are there clogging up the tracklisting-- otherwise, this could've very well been one of Al's best. Buy it for the six good songs since they're catchy and hilarious in every way imaginable.
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(reviewed by Rich Bunnell)
A slight improvement, mainly because Al includes more style parodies here than he'd ever written up to this point, and style parodies are without a doubt my favorite type of Al song. The songs in question? "You Make Me" replicates Oingo Boingo punky quirk-pop (complete with rumbaphone), "Twister" brings to mind the Beastie Boys, the quietly-sadistic (and FUNNY AS FREAKING HELL) "Good Old Days" completely evokes James Taylor, and "Velvet Elvis" does the Police "white reggae" style to a tee (though it sort-of-blatantly steals its instrumental bridge from their "Synchronicity II").
"Melanie" is another okay sadistic ballad, the biggest hit on here "Fat" is a good companion tune to "Eat It," and "Stuck In A Closet With Vanna White," while sort of stupid and random lyrically (pretty funny though), is funny simply for its pompous '80s Aerosmith-style corporate rock arrangement. With all that in mind, it's once again too bad that the rest of the album is so lame-- "Lasagna" and "Alimony" are parodies of two horrible mid-'80s remakes, and the lyrics on them seem like Al only wrote half of them and then randomly rhymed words to come up with the rest. "I Think I'm A Clone Now" is marginally better, but still pretty much just the Tiffany remake actually sung by a talented vocalist.
It's better than the last two albums despite its fallacies, and it's pretty much made worth it by the George Harrison parody "(This Song's Just) Six Words Long," the first time ever where Al parodied a song just for the purpose of making fun of it (this would also be done five years later with "Achy Breaky Song"). Some people seem to hate this due to Al's attempts to lean towards the "original songs" side of things, but in my opinion the originals here are possibly the strongest he ever wrote. Like I said, though, I'm a sucker for style parodies, and this isn't quite as good as Al's first pair of albums. He would follow this album up with his absolute peak, however, so this doesn't bother me all too much.
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(reviewed by Rich Bunnell)
The soundtrack for Al's 1989 movie "UHF" (a movie which I heartily recommend if you have any sort of sense of humor), this is actually just another Al-bum, and probably his most consistent one at that. As is to be expected of a soundtrack, it contains pretty much all of the songs used in the movie-- the Beverly Hillbillies take on Dire Straits' "Money For Nothing," the catchy (though not really funny) title track, and a neat instrumental called "Fun Zone." Two of the movie's more memorable soundclips are included as well, those being "Spatula City" ("Buy nine spatulas, get the tenth one for just one penny!") and "Gandhi II" ("No more Mr. Passive Resistence. He's out to kick some butt.").
The "other stuff" hinted at in the title takes the form of the standard fare of originals, parodies, and the prerequisite polka medley. The medley, "Hot Rocks Polka," is one of Al's best, taking a myriad of Rolling Stones songs and turning most of them completely on their heads (hearing "Miss You" played with accordians is one of the funniest things you'll ever hear). The originals are decent, the best being "Generic Blues," which is as witty as the title suggests (in case you read me wrong, it's really good) and "The Biggest Ball Of Twine In Minnesota" is a chugging, anthemic seven-minute epic about a yuppie tourist family making a pilgrimage to the tourist attraction to end all tourist attractions.
As for the parodies, "Spam" is a funny take on R.E.M.'s "Stand" (and if the R.E.M. version is too darned sluggish for you, Al's pepped it up a bit) and "She Drives Me Crazy" is not only funny, it improves the mix on the original Fine Young Cannibals hit, which was pretty much the factor that made the original song suck so badly. The only truly lame songs on the album are "Isle Thing," a forced Gilligan's Island take on Tone Loc's rap hit "Wild Thing," and a good deal of "Attack Of The Radioactive Hampsters From A Planet Near Mars," which is basically a wacky version of "Slime Creatures From Outer Space" that fails despite a few clever lines. Overall, however, the good-to-bad ratio is favored highly to the left on this album, and it's probably your best bet if you wanna buy something by Al. If you don't, you're mean and I hate you.
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COMMENTS
[email protected] (John Schlegel)
Great review of the UHF soundtrack, Rich. Like the movie, this one is so unjustly underrated and overlooked. However, is "Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnessota" really about a "yuppy" family going on vacation? I always took the song as more of an observation of banal American working-class culture--and a stellar one at that. I mean, they coat their car windows with decals, and they've been to places like Elvis-O-Rama, tupper-wear museums and tarantula ranches. Those sound like Simpsons family outings to me. The dad pops himself a beer. But whatever. I know this is a requisite Comic Book Guy-level comment (which is to say I should get a life), but I just felt like submitting a review this morning. I also didn't mention this ingenious Al-riginal (I just made that up) in my review on Mark Prindle's page. My favorite line is: "And we all gathered 'round and said 'cheese'/Then Bernie ran away with my brand-new Winsta-matic, but at least we have our mem-or-ies"--hilarious! And for the record, I not sure how to spell the name of that camera.
(reviewed by Rich Bunnell)
Suddenly, in the early '90s, popular music completely went to crap (not that it had far to fall) and not a single song came out that was truly worthy of parodying. Al got some material recorded, but none were complete A-List material that would guarantee a hit on the radio parody circuit (if such a thing actually exists). Luckily, Nirvana suddenly came along and changed music in 1991, and along with it came their hit "Smells Like Teen Spirit," which Al leaped upon immediately. The parody that resulted was "Smells Like Nirvana," a brilliant parody of early '90s youth culture and grunge bands both at the same time ("It's unintelligible, I just can't get it through my skull, it's hard to *bargle nawdle zouss*, with all these marbles in my mouth....") and it pretty much re-established Al as a major comedic force after the lack of commercial success he'd had for a few years.
The rest of the album is mostly very good as well. Starting with this album, Al was at the producer's helm, and his style was considerably slicker than that of his original producer Rick Derringer. This means that the parodies are more clearly produced and sound more like the original songs; a trick which really helps in his hilarious MC Hammer parody ("I Can't Watch This") and his parodies of flash-in-the-pans Gerardo and Milli Vanilli ("Taco Grande" and "The Plumbing Song" respectively). The polka medley is once again hilarious, this time bringing in Metallica, Janet Jackson, R.E.M., the B-52's, and a bunch of early-'90s one hit wonders that were so prevalent at the time (Digital Underground, Technotronic).
Additionally, a good deal of the originals are really good, such as the spiteful, youth-hating "When I Was Your Age" (which lifts its keyboard line from Don Henley's "Dirty Laundry"), the subtly-hilarious ballad "You Don't Love Me Anymore" and the gun-supporting California surf anthem "Trigger Happy"("Oh I still haven't figured out the safety on my rifle yet! Little Fluffy took a round, better take him to the vet! I filled that kitty cat so full of lead, we'll have to use him for a pencil instead!").
The only points of lameness arise in the totally-ordinary "Airline Amy," the funny-the-first-time "I Was Only Kidding" and the weak New Kids parody "The White Stuff" (about Oreos, you pervert). Otherwise, this is a very good album and probably Al's third or fourth best. Unfortunately, after this album, he turned to almost complete crap for seven years, but that's probably a consequence of releasing two really good albums in a row.
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[email protected] (John Schlegel)
This has been my favorite Weird Al record since it came out. Many people criticize it on the grounds that all of the parodies except "Smells Like Nirvana" were horribly outdated in 1992. That is technically true, but the album still contains many good parodies, including the ones of M.C. Hammer and Gerardo. Better still are the originals, which rate among Al's best ever. "Trigger Happy" has got to be one of my all-time favorite Al songs--"Shot daddyyyyy in the den! . . . Drug-craaaaazed Nazi again!" Sick, sick--and I love it, LOOOVE IT!! Yes, the kitty-cat-full-of-lead part is a scream as well. "You Don't Love Me Anymore" is also a masterpiece. It's simply a beautiful ballad (softly sung to boot) juxtaposed with warped, sadistic lyrics; one of Al's best-ever uses of irony! ("Oh, why did you disconnect the breaks on my car?/That kinda' think is hard to ignore/Gotta' funny feeling you don't love me anymore") And "When I Was Your Age" is also filled with brilliant lines (even if it is a little derivative of "Generic Blues"). Yeah, "The White Stuff" and "Airline Amy" are terrible, but the rest is outstanding. If you buy one Weird Al, buy this one.
smells like nirvana- i didnt like it, nirvanas my favorite band and obviously weird al thinks different~i'm also a fan of weird al , but that made me mad, weird al basically trashed nirvana's lyrics
(reviewed by Rich Bunnell)
Suddenly, Al forgot to write good jokes and melodies. Following the success of the previous album, Al quickly cranked out another studio product a year and a half later, and it really, really shows. The three most popular songs, all song parodies, each take on weak, trendy topics. The biggest example is the first single "Jurassic Park," a parody of Richard Harris' "MacArthur Park," which is somewhat funny the first time but on repeated listenings just becomes more and more boring and dated. The popular "Bedrock Anthem" takes a spin on the Red Hot Chili Peppers songs "Under The Bridge" and "Give It Away," but the chorus of "Yabba dabba yabba dabba dabba doo now!" grows tiring after a couple of times, and Al really seems to run short on material about halfway through. "Achy Breaky Song" is a swipe at Billy Ray Cyrus that was probably funny at the time, but it still can't get past the fact that it bears the melody of "Achy Breaky Heart."
Likewise, Al hits a creative dry spot with most of the originals, churning out a weak Prince style parody with no jokes in "Traffic Jam," manufacturing boring glam metal in "Young, Dumb and Ugly," and crapping out one of his most nondescript songs ever in "She Never Told Me She Was A Mime"--the whole joke of the song is in the title, and the song's dull, watered-down melody and lack of hilarious moments really don't help that much. "Talk Soup" tries to sound like Peter Gabriel's "Steam," only it's not catchy, and completely fails in its attempt at parodying sleazy talk shows.
Luckily, as with any album of Al's, there are a few endearing songs, but with a big fat emphasis on "few." "Frank's 2000" TV" is a melodic, jangly early R.E.M. style parody that manages to squeeze in a Simpsons reference, "Livin' In The Fridge" manages to turn the dreary social commentary of the Aerosmith original into absolute hilarity, "Waffle King" starts out stupid and predictable but ends up funny when the song's lead character takes a sudden left turn into pompous megalomaniaty, and "Bohemian Polka" takes advantage of the stylistic diversity of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" by turning the five-minute song into a three-and-a-half minute virtual polka medley. Nevertheless, this album is easily a product of its time (even the cover and title make dated references to Jurassic Park and Lollapalooza) and not one that can be recommended easily. Out of every album Weird Al ever made, this one gets old the fastest, and for the most part is not worth anybody's listening time.
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COMMENTS
Listen to it again, after you clean out the wax between ears. You obviously weren’t listening to the album properly.
(reviewed by Rich Bunnell)
After Alapalooza, Weird Al took a deserved two-and-a-half year break, but unfortunately it didn't seem to have helped the quality of his material very much. On the good side, "Amish Paradise" is one of his most hilarious singles ever, mainly because he made the brilliant move of actually rapping the lyrics like an Amish guy would, and the results are hi-frickin-larious. "Everything You Know Is Wrong" is much funnier if you're a TMBG fan than if you're some kind of jerkhole who isn't, because Al breathlessly parodies John Linnell's singing style and TMBG lyrics in general to great effect.
Likewise, "I'm So Sick Of You" isn't too funny in itself (it's basically just another of Al's generic put-down songs), but if you're familiar with This Year's Model-era Elvis Costello, it sounds particularly funny hearing Al impersonate the snarling, pissed-off attitude shown by one Declan McManus on that classic 1978 album. "The Night Santa Went Crazy" is a modern, more violent update on "Christmas At Ground Zero" that really works, and "The Alternative Polka" is Al's most successful polka yet, as he makes the wise choice of applying the polka medley to a bunch of depressing alternative acts like Smashing Pumpkins, Alanis Morissette, Nine Inch Nails, and Soundgarden.
Sadly, the rest of the album is taken up by more boring, generic crap - the Soul Asylum parody "Syndicated Inc." is nothing but a dull list of old television shows, the TLC parody "Phony Calls" once again isn't funny enough to overtake the original song's crappy melody (even with a Simpsons soundclip of Bart prank-calling Moe), and the Presidents Of The USA parody "Gump" annoyingly continues Al's latest philosophy that if you summarize a movie's plot, it automatically counts as funny. The originals "Callin' In Sick" and "I Remember Larry" have their moments, but are too low on jokes and good melodies to justify their existence. Thus, overall, while this album is better than the previous album, it's still far too mediocre to recommend. But do I really need to? Thanks to "Amish Paradise," the album sold 1.7 million copies! Unfortunately, when most of those 1.7 million people heard the album, it didn't entice them to purchase the superior followup three years later...
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COMMENTS
Definitely a weak outing for Al. It sure has it's moments, though. A lot of the humor is downright abrasive and may come off as embarrassingly childish, but some of it still manages to be funny. "Amish Paradise" is indeed one of Al's stronger parodies, and I even find the heavily-criticized "Gump" to be a hoot as well. "I Remember Larry" and "Since You've Been Gone" are also half-decent originals that amuse the first few times around--but they sure don't hold up to their respective proto-types, "Trigger Happy" and "One More Minute." The "Alternative Polka" is one of Al's better medleys, employing a conceptual theme that really works, not unlike "Hot Rocks Polka." And based on what little They Might Be Giants I've heard, "Everything You Know Is Wrong" does a good job at mimicking that group; the song certainly has a good melody, whether or not you're a TMBG fan.
A lot of this is pretty forgettable, though. Most of the "good" songs I mentioned ("I Remember Larry," "Gump") aren't THAT good, and the bad stuff is BAD. "The Night Santa Went Crazy" is often revered by fans, but I don't think it's very funny. The parody of the U2 song from that reprehensible Batman movie has a few good lines, but it's weak too. And "Phony Calls"? --Whoa! Garbage! The original song wasn't good, and Al's parody is very half-assed. I don't even remember what "Syndicated Inc." sounds like (probably because it sounds like Soul Asylum), and I don't at all recall the existence of the This Year's Model-Elvis Costello style parody. I wouldn't mind hearing the latter again, as I'm a Costello fan now, and wasn't back when I owned this CD. But if I don't remember those "melodies," then they must be pretty nondescript--like too much of this album, I'm afraid.
(reviewed by Rich Bunnell)
Some of the material on this long-awaited album continues many of Al's earlier musical trends. The first single "The Saga Begins" tells the long, boring story of 1999's summer crap-fest "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace" to Don McLean's "American Pie," and it's marginally funny the first time but a drag on subsequent listens. "Grapefruit Diet" is a ho-hum food parody of the Cherry Poppin' Daddies swing revival hit "Zoot Suit Riot," and "Truck Drivin' Song" is a dull country tune about a transvestite truck driver that recalls Monty Python's "Lumberjack Song" a bit too obviously for comfort.
Luckily, Al's back in patented classic Al mode for the rest of the album. The two most controversial songs are two of the funniest, those being the Offspring parody "Pretty Fly (For A Rabbi)" and the Barenaked Ladies parody "Jerry Springer" ("One Week"). Al's been accused of parodying songs that were already funny in the first place, but if you ask me, the two originals were more self-consciously funny than actually funny, and Al's applied the somewhat-catchy melodies to hilarious lyrics (hilarious lyrics?!? Al hasn't done that in a while!???!!!!). Additionally, the Puff Daddy parody "It's All About The Pentiums" is a contender for Al's best parody ever in my mind, taking a view at the internet that's shockingly accurate in its terminology ("In a 32-bit world you're a 2-bit user, you've got your own newsgroup, alt.total.loser!").
The originals are mostly topnotch this time around, whether they be the quickly-paced theme song to Al's short-lived CBS show, the hysterically paranoid Nine Inch Nails style parody "Germs" ("They're all over me! They're inside of me! Can't get 'em off of me!"), or "Your Horoscope For Today," a sadistic third-wave ska runthrough of the zodiac featuring members of Reel Big Fish on horns. Finally, it all comes to full fruition on the rambling 11-minute magnum opus "Albuquerque," which Al literally fills up entirely with quickly spoken, random, and hilarious lyrics about a bizarre trip to the mythical New Mexico city, and if anyone doesn't bust out with laughter at least eight or nine times over the course of the song, he (she?) doesn't have a sense of humor. It's sort of a ripoff of Zappa's "Yellow Snow" and some song I heard called "Dick's Automotive," but it surpasses those songs in humor value by far so I'm not complaining.
I heartily recommend that anyone buy this, since only about a third of the people who bought Bad Hair Day seem to have bought this (to this date, it has only gone gold). It's a somewhat patchy but overall hysterical return to the style that brought Al such success with his classic albums like In 3-D and Off The Deep End. Plus, Al doesn't have his glasses or mustache anymore!!! And he looks friggin' bizarre!!! (Even in comparison to his old look!)
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COMMENTS
Three things...first of all, I've really enjoyed reading your reviews. They seem fair and accurate, and are only harsh because I'm such a fan of Al.
The other two things have to do with "Albuquerque." I know the city Al talks about in his song is mythical, but isn't Albuquerque a real place? Not that it really matters...
And lastly, you compared "Albuquerque" to Zappa's "Yellow Snow." After listening to the new album, I have to ask...what do you think of "Genius in France?" It's pure genius to me.
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