It was 6 a.m. in the Butler Plaza Publix bakery when a co-worker said something I never thought I’d hear: “I’m glad ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic is doing well again.”
My head snapped.
I went home after my shift to find, in fact, “Weird Al” had been making new music. And not just a single, a whole album.
The 54-year-old Yankovic released his 14th album, “Mandatory Fun,” full of parodies and comedic interpretations, and just like the first one released in 1983, it has simple, funny reworks of some of the era’s most popular and annoying sounds while paying homage to artists who he enjoys.
On “Mandatory Fun,” Yankovic parodies the sexist and degrading “Blurred Lines” by Robin Thicke and changes it into a tune pointing out poor grammar, noting he thinks it’s a “Goooooood tiiiiiiime / to learn some grammar / Now did I stammer? / Go learn some grammar.”
Additionally, he parodies the Grammy Award-winning “Royals” by Lorde (“Foil”), the still-infectiously annoying “Happy” by Pharrell (“Tacky”), the “damn, how-did-this-song-get-radio-play-in-the-first-place” summer hit “Fancy” by Iggy Azalea (“Handy”) and the not-so-bad “Radioactive” by Imagine Dragons (“Inactive”), along with a mash-up of songs including Miley Cyrus’ “Wrecking Ball,” Foster the People’s “Pumped Up Kicks,” Psy’s “Gangnam Style,” Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe” and more in a genre he knows best: polka.
The comedian also makes original songs influenced by music he had been listening to recently, like Foo Fighters (“My Own Eyes”), Blue Oyster Cult (“Lame Claim to Fame”) and, maybe my favorite, the wonderful out-of-date tradition of college fight songs (“Sports Songs”).
While “Mandatory Fun” isn’t anything I’d play on my way to the beach while I’m trying to enjoy my last days of summer in Gainesville or at the damn-it-it’s-the-end-of-the-summer party I hope to remember, it is a reminder of how annoying all of these sounds can get from radio and club play and how easy it is to make fun of them. It helps that “Weird Al”’s takes on these songs are actually funny and tolerable after hearing the beat to some of them too often over the last year.
“Weird Al” would never come up in anyone’s “Best Artists of All Time” lists probably ever (aside from my co-worker’s, maybe), but I finally realize the appreciation we all should have for him.
He can make music until the day he dies, and I’ll still listen — especially if he’s joking about Iggy Azalea and Robin “I Want Paula Back, But I’ll Exploit My Fame To Make Money Off Her” Thicke.
[A version of this story ran on page 10 on 7/31/2014 under the headline "‘Weird Al’ still working"]
