"So I did." -- Running With Scissors
I'm gonna try something a little different this week.
Running With Scissors is Weirld Al Yankovich's 1999 album. If you don't already know, Weird Al's songs are pretty much all either parodies of songs, movies, and whatever, or random randomness, and they are usually pretty funny. Just grouping the songs all together couldn't possibly do them justice, so I'll go through the disk ditty by ditty.
The first song, "The Saga Begins," is a pretty good parody of Don Lean's "American Pie" which basically re-works the lyrics to be about Star Wars Episode 1. Although the Laugh factor is lowish, the song is clever and can be fun to listen to after watching the movie.
Humor: 2.5/5 midichlorians.
Next comes "My Baby's In Love With Eddie Vedder," which is not, to my knowledge, a parody of another song so much as about Eddie Vedder. This one is funnier than the first, but it perhaps would have been a better idea to parody someone more famous.
Humor: 3.2/5 sweaters.
"Pretty Fly For A Rabbi" comes in at slot #3. I'll give you three guesses which song it's parodying. Continuing the trend (up until now) of increasing funny, this has a number of laugh-out-loud moments. The rabbi in question is more than a little stereotypical, which would have been a stronger negative if it wasn't obviously not making a statement.
Humor: 3.6/5 shticks.
For a short time, Weird Al had a television show, and of course he wrote the theme song for it. "The Weird Al Show Theme" is that theme song, and it's one of those utterly nonsensical riffs that Weird Al's so good at. A mere 1:14 long, this song moves very fast and it will take a quick ear to catch it all the first time through.
Humor: 4/5 bear traps.
One of the funniest songs in the album, "Jerry Springer" parodies both Barenaked Ladies' "One Week" and (*gasp*) The Jerry Springer Show. The lines really pop out at you, utterly random and perfectly poignant at the same time. Although he's taking the show's premise to an absurd level, somehow it always seems just close enough to possibility to keep it from getting, well, absurd beyond recognition. Particularly funny is a short dialogue between two "guests" of the Jerry Springer show shouting back and forth at each other inserted in the middle. This song is damned funny.
Humor: 5/5 strippers (with the implants).
Following a high point is a low point: "Germs." I strongly dislike this song. First, its not funny. Second, you get the distinct impression that Weird All is standing uncomfortably close to you as he's singing it. And third, who wants to hear about germs covering everything?
Humor: 1/5 germs (duh).
He throws one of these in every album, but I still don't get them. "Polka Power" takes short refrains, verses, and snippets from various pop/etc. songs and plays them more quickly and in a higher octave than they were meant to be played, as well as with Weird Al's voice and to Polka. EXTREMELY bizarre, and rather funny, in its own way. It's hard to know exactly why its funny, though. Just ... yeah. Weirdness.
Humor: 3.5/5 pretty ones.
Also ranking near the top, "Your Horoscope For Today" is breathtakingly hilarious. Just everything from the lyrics to the tone, to the music, to the voice effects: everything comes together to create a beautiful amalgamation of funny and comedy. Most of the song is in an up-beat, happy voice, while singing terrible prophesies, but the single funniest moment is when it switches to a very low, menacing voice (while keeping the doom prophesies, of course).
Humor: 5/5 naked posters of Ernest Borgnine.
Another great song, "It's All About The Pentiums" is chock-full of computer geek lingo, computer geek injokes, and overall funny. A good song for anyone who's owned a computer, but those of you who churn through computer upgrades like a duck through warm saline solution will find it particularly interesting. (See that thing about a duck through saline solution? That's the sign that I need to go to bed. A sign that a intent wholeheartedly to ignore).
Humor: 4/5 nice, heavy, paper weights.
"Truck Drivin' Song" weirds even me out, and that's not easy to do. I'm sorry, but truckers just should *not* be allowed to use the words "crotchless panties," especially when they are talking about how they "ride up." *Shudders* Whatever you do, do *not* sing this song outloud near other people while listening to the album with headphones.
Humor: 2/5 rhinestone pumps (it's not that its unfunny, its just that it weirds me out too much to make me laugh).
"Grapefruit Diet," the calm before the storm, disappoints. Although the execution of the idea is pretty well done, it still ends up being flat-out not funny. The beat's pretty good, though.
Humor: 1/5 aerial-view pictures.
The last pays for all. "Albuquerque" is exactly eleven minutes and twenty five seconds of sheer hilarity (as opposed to opaque hilarity, the poser of the hilarity universe). Similar to "The Weird Al Show Theme," "Albuquerque" isn't parodying anything or anyone; its just random and arbitrary. Really, every moment of this song/story has parts that make sense and parts that really don't, and it all works just well. A delightful song definitely worth the price of the album all by itself.
Humor: 5/5 molecules on Leonard Nemoy's butt.
Well ... that's pretty much it ... might as well wrap up, though ...
Overall Humor (not necessarily directly determined by the above ratings): 5/5 boxes of starving crazed weasels (If you don't want to laugh, avoid this album like a rare Albanian cheese plague).
Melody: 4/5 Kings of Confrontation (Although there are undoubtedly better scores elsewhere, the music itself is still pretty good).
Sing-a-long-a-bility: 4.5/5 high heels (Most of the songs are great fun to sing along with, but it's very difficult to do this with a few, namely "Albuquerque").
CD Visuals: 3.5/5 TicketMasters (Although the pictures used for the CD case were good, they were rather predictable considering the title).
Overall (not necessarily determined by the above categories): 4.5/5 Columbia Record Clubs (Funny funny funny! That's funny^3, which, for those of you without calculators capable of computing that, is a whole lot of funny!).
Running With Scissors is Weirld Al Yankovich's 1999 album. If you don't already know, Weird Al's songs are pretty much all either parodies of songs, movies, and whatever, or random randomness, and they are usually pretty funny. Just grouping the songs all together couldn't possibly do them justice, so I'll go through the disk ditty by ditty.
The first song, "The Saga Begins," is a pretty good parody of Don Lean's "American Pie" which basically re-works the lyrics to be about Star Wars Episode 1. Although the Laugh factor is lowish, the song is clever and can be fun to listen to after watching the movie.
Humor: 2.5/5 midichlorians.
Next comes "My Baby's In Love With Eddie Vedder," which is not, to my knowledge, a parody of another song so much as about Eddie Vedder. This one is funnier than the first, but it perhaps would have been a better idea to parody someone more famous.
Humor: 3.2/5 sweaters.
"Pretty Fly For A Rabbi" comes in at slot #3. I'll give you three guesses which song it's parodying. Continuing the trend (up until now) of increasing funny, this has a number of laugh-out-loud moments. The rabbi in question is more than a little stereotypical, which would have been a stronger negative if it wasn't obviously not making a statement.
Humor: 3.6/5 shticks.
For a short time, Weird Al had a television show, and of course he wrote the theme song for it. "The Weird Al Show Theme" is that theme song, and it's one of those utterly nonsensical riffs that Weird Al's so good at. A mere 1:14 long, this song moves very fast and it will take a quick ear to catch it all the first time through.
Humor: 4/5 bear traps.
One of the funniest songs in the album, "Jerry Springer" parodies both Barenaked Ladies' "One Week" and (*gasp*) The Jerry Springer Show. The lines really pop out at you, utterly random and perfectly poignant at the same time. Although he's taking the show's premise to an absurd level, somehow it always seems just close enough to possibility to keep it from getting, well, absurd beyond recognition. Particularly funny is a short dialogue between two "guests" of the Jerry Springer show shouting back and forth at each other inserted in the middle. This song is damned funny.
Humor: 5/5 strippers (with the implants).
Following a high point is a low point: "Germs." I strongly dislike this song. First, its not funny. Second, you get the distinct impression that Weird All is standing uncomfortably close to you as he's singing it. And third, who wants to hear about germs covering everything?
Humor: 1/5 germs (duh).
He throws one of these in every album, but I still don't get them. "Polka Power" takes short refrains, verses, and snippets from various pop/etc. songs and plays them more quickly and in a higher octave than they were meant to be played, as well as with Weird Al's voice and to Polka. EXTREMELY bizarre, and rather funny, in its own way. It's hard to know exactly why its funny, though. Just ... yeah. Weirdness.
Humor: 3.5/5 pretty ones.
Also ranking near the top, "Your Horoscope For Today" is breathtakingly hilarious. Just everything from the lyrics to the tone, to the music, to the voice effects: everything comes together to create a beautiful amalgamation of funny and comedy. Most of the song is in an up-beat, happy voice, while singing terrible prophesies, but the single funniest moment is when it switches to a very low, menacing voice (while keeping the doom prophesies, of course).
Humor: 5/5 naked posters of Ernest Borgnine.
Another great song, "It's All About The Pentiums" is chock-full of computer geek lingo, computer geek injokes, and overall funny. A good song for anyone who's owned a computer, but those of you who churn through computer upgrades like a duck through warm saline solution will find it particularly interesting. (See that thing about a duck through saline solution? That's the sign that I need to go to bed. A sign that a intent wholeheartedly to ignore).
Humor: 4/5 nice, heavy, paper weights.
"Truck Drivin' Song" weirds even me out, and that's not easy to do. I'm sorry, but truckers just should *not* be allowed to use the words "crotchless panties," especially when they are talking about how they "ride up." *Shudders* Whatever you do, do *not* sing this song outloud near other people while listening to the album with headphones.
Humor: 2/5 rhinestone pumps (it's not that its unfunny, its just that it weirds me out too much to make me laugh).
"Grapefruit Diet," the calm before the storm, disappoints. Although the execution of the idea is pretty well done, it still ends up being flat-out not funny. The beat's pretty good, though.
Humor: 1/5 aerial-view pictures.
The last pays for all. "Albuquerque" is exactly eleven minutes and twenty five seconds of sheer hilarity (as opposed to opaque hilarity, the poser of the hilarity universe). Similar to "The Weird Al Show Theme," "Albuquerque" isn't parodying anything or anyone; its just random and arbitrary. Really, every moment of this song/story has parts that make sense and parts that really don't, and it all works just well. A delightful song definitely worth the price of the album all by itself.
Humor: 5/5 molecules on Leonard Nemoy's butt.
Well ... that's pretty much it ... might as well wrap up, though ...
Overall Humor (not necessarily directly determined by the above ratings): 5/5 boxes of starving crazed weasels (If you don't want to laugh, avoid this album like a rare Albanian cheese plague).
Melody: 4/5 Kings of Confrontation (Although there are undoubtedly better scores elsewhere, the music itself is still pretty good).
Sing-a-long-a-bility: 4.5/5 high heels (Most of the songs are great fun to sing along with, but it's very difficult to do this with a few, namely "Albuquerque").
CD Visuals: 3.5/5 TicketMasters (Although the pictures used for the CD case were good, they were rather predictable considering the title).
Overall (not necessarily determined by the above categories): 4.5/5 Columbia Record Clubs (Funny funny funny! That's funny^3, which, for those of you without calculators capable of computing that, is a whole lot of funny!).
posted by Lexi Archer | 11:47 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home