“Weird Al” Yankovic, the undisputed king of parody songs, released his fourteenth studio album entitled Mandatory Fun. This album is a departure from previous works, in that, seven of the twelve tracks are original compositions. In addition to the standard polka medley that wheels through eleven polka-fied covers of songs like “Wrecking Ball”, “Gangnam Style”, “Call Me Maybe”, “Sexy And I Know It” and “Thrift Shop”, there are also six “style parodies”: original compositions done in the style of artists such as The Foo Fighters, The Pixies and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.
On the Foo Fighters parody, “My Own Eyes”, Al and company expertly ape the Dave Grohl fronted bands style while singing an increasingly absurd list of things he wishes he could unsee. “I saw a naked vagrant giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to his cat/I probably could have gone my whole life without seeing that,” Al sings.
That is not to say that there aren’t the more straightforward parodies that Al is known for. While “Handy” and “Inactive”, parodies of Iggy Azalea’s “Fancy” and “Radioactive” by Imagine Dragons respectively, suffer from slightly weaker premises, the parody of “Blurred Lines” hits it out of the park. On the track, called “Word Crimes”, Al deftly takes on the falsetto of Robin Thicke, son of the Growing Pains patriarch. “Say you got an “i-t”/Followed by apostrophe, “s”/Now what does that mean?/You would not use “it’s” in this case/As a possessive (no, no, no!)/It’s a contraction (yeah, yeah, yeah!)” Al sings before going on to define a contraction.
On “Tacky”, a parody of Pharrel Williams Oscar nominated song “Happy” and one of the best songs on the album, Al lists off the various reasons he may be perceived as tacky like: “I meet some chick, ask her this and that/Like are you pregnant, girl, or just fat?” Later, during the chorus, he lists more reasons including: “Wear my belt with suspenders and sandals with my socks/Got some new glitter Uggs and lovely pink sequined Crocs,” as well as, “Practice my twerking moves in line at the DMV,” and, of course, “If I’m bitten by a zombie I’m probably not telling you.”
The album winds down with a sprawling nine+ minute song “Jackson Park Express”. Done in the style of Cat Stevens’ folk epics, the song tells the story of a man on a bus who falls in love with a female passenger. Through a series of misinterpreted body language cues a love begins and ends in his mind without a word being spoken between the two.
“She looked at me in a way that asked: “Did you have a nose job or something? I’m only asking ‘cause your nose looks slightly better than the rest of your face,” Al sings, his heartfelt delivery a comedic contrast to the silliness of the lyrics. As the song ramps up to a crescendo so does the absurdity of the lyrics, “I’d like to rip you wide open and French-kiss every single one of your internal organs/Oh, I’d like to remove all your skin and wear you skin over my own skin…but not in a creepy way.”
This is yet another solid release from a comedy icon. If you are already a fan then this album is, as the title suggests, mandatory. If you are new to the wonderful world of “Weird Al” then check out the music videos on YouTube for “Word Crimes” and “Tacky” to solidify whether or not Al is your cup of tea.