"Weird Al" Yankovic

Alfred Matthew "Weird Al" Yankovic (born October 23, 1959) is a Grammy award winning American musician, satirist, parodist, accordionist, and television producer.

Al's songs

Though he is best known for his song parodies, Yankovic has recorded a greater number of original humorous songs, such as "Why Does This Always Happen to Me?" and "Hardware Store". Yankovic's work depends largely on the satirizing of popular culture, including television ("Can't Watch This"), movies ("The Saga Begins"), food ("Eat It"), popular music (the polkas), and sometimes issues in contemporary news ("Headline News"). Although many of his songs are parodies of contemporary radio hits, it is rare that the song's primary topic of lampooning is that artist. Yankovic's humor lies more in creating unexpected incongruity between an artist's image and the topic of the song, contrasting the style of the song with its content, or in pointing out trends or works which have become pop culture cliches. Some of his original songs are pastiches or "style parodies," where he chooses a band's entire body of work to honor/parody rather than any single hit by that band; some bands so honored have been Devo ("Dare to Be Stupid"), The B-52's ("Mr. Popeil"), Talking Heads ("Dog Eat Dog"), Nine Inch Nails ("Germs"), The Beach Boys ("Trigger Happy"), Frank Zappa ("Genius in France"), Oingo Boingo ("You Make Me"), The Police ("Velvet Elvis"), Twisted Sister ("Young, Dumb And Ugly"), James Taylor ("The Good Old Days"), The Beastie Boys ("Twister"), They Might Be Giants ("Everything You Know is Wrong"), Bob Dylan ("Bob"), The Kinks ("Don't Wear Those Shoes"), R.E.M ("Frank's 2000 Inch TV"), and Harry Chapin ("The Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota").

Related Topics:
Popular culture - Pastiche - Devo - The B-52's - Talking Heads - Nine Inch Nails - The Beach Boys - Frank Zappa - Oingo Boingo - The Police - Twisted Sister - James Taylor - The Beastie Boys - They Might Be Giants - Bob Dylan - The Kinks - R.E.M - Harry Chapin

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In addition to his parodies, Al also includes a medley of various songs on most albums, each one reinterpreted as a polka, with the choruses of various songs juxtaposed for humourous effect. Examples include "Alternative Polka," "Angry White Boy Polka" and "Polka Power." "Bohemian Polka" is unique in that it is not a medley; rather, it is a full rendition of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody."

Related Topics:
Polka - Queen's - Bohemian Rhapsody

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One of his most controversial parodies was Amish Paradise, a spoof of the song Gangsta's Paradise by Coolio. Coolio's label gave Weird Al permission to parody his work and gave the impression that Coolio gave his permission as well, but Coolio maintains that he himself never gave permission. Coolio was upset, but legal action never materialized, and Coolio accepted royalty payments for the song. After this happened, Al always made sure to speak directly with the artist of every song he parodied.

Related Topics:
Amish Paradise - Gangsta's Paradise - Coolio - Royalty

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He has contributed songs to several films, including the original song "This Is The Life", featured on the soundtrack for Johnny Dangerously; the title track to his own movie, UHF; and a parody of the James Bond title sequences in Spy Hard, the title track to a 1996 Leslie Nielsen movie directed by Rick Friedberg. He also contributed the song "Dare to Be Stupid" to ', and the song "Polkamon" to Pokémon The Movie 2000 - The Power of One.

Related Topics:
Film - Johnny Dangerously - UHF - James Bond - Spy Hard - 1996 - Leslie Nielsen - Rick Friedberg - Pokémon The Movie 2000 - The Power of One

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