Post by StevePulaski on Jul 16, 2014 9:48:29 GMT -5
Mandatory Fun (2014)
By: "Weird Al" Yankovic
By: "Weird Al" Yankovic
Rating: ★★★
The future of "Weird Al" Yankovic's career has come into question over the last few years, and, admittedly, has been less of a novelty, seeing as parodies of mainstream hits exist all over the internet now, done by mostly amateur YouTube users. With this, Al has had to do a serious reality-check with his work, often releasing EPs to keep his parodies relevant, or before the hit being parodied escapes the charts and becomes forgotten, and simply just trying to release albums with a great deal of buzz in advance so sales can be particularly strong. Mandatory Fun is rumored to be the last conventional album we see by the parody legend, before maybe taking on the idea of releasing singles and EPs more frequently to keep combat the aforementioned problems with parody music in the age of the internet, and if that is the case, he goes out with an audible and memorable bang.
Mandatory Fun follows three years after the strong but admittedly disappointing Alpocalypse which, while bearing quality songs, utilized five songs from an EP Al had released several years back, so the element of "datedness" existed in a rather noticeable form. With the release of his fourteenth album, Al forgoes everything in the vein of singles to releasing the album and proceeding to release one music video from the album a day, for eight days, letting the fans decide what the hits actually are. Al stated that, "I wanted a video to go viral for an entire day and have people talking about that video, and then the next day they're talking about a new video." Being that we're only on day three and solid buzz has been generating, I consider it a pretty commendable success.
The album is one of Al's first in memory to feature more stylistic parodies than actual mainstream parodies, and those style parodies are unexpected taken from older bands such as Crosby, Stills & Nash, Pixies, Southern Culture on the Skids, Foo Fighters, and Cat Stevens. Admittedly, my favorite Al songs have always been the direct parody of hits I've recognized on the radio and, in this case, we get "Inactive," which is a fun romp lampooning Imagine Dragons' "Radioactive," "Foil," a parody of Lorde's "Royals," concerning a man in love with aluminum foil for two reasons, and, the album's strongest direct parody, "Handy," a parody of the Iggy Azalea tune "Fancy," concerning a man who finds himself very useful in events that require handywork, "Word Crimes," a grammar lover's theme song about society's dwindling writing skills and Al critiquing their shortcomings, which follows the tune of Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines," and "Tacky," a take on Pharrell Williams' "Happy," which points out the asinine clothing choices or tactless comments and actions committed by people.
The stylistic parodies are hit and miss for a lot of people, being that if you're unaware of the style of the band being parodied, you're mostly just left to looking at the song and seeing if you like it based on Al's witty lyricism, which isn't really hard. The most noteworthy of the batch are the Southern Culture on the Skids' style parody "Lame Claim to Fame," concerning a man's loose relationships with celebrities, the Pixies jab "First World Problems," which features numerous examples of exactly what the title hints at, "My Own Eyes," a wildly outlandish melody in style of the Foo Fighters, and then the nine-minute epic "Jackson Park Express," which closes the album in a style that apparently lampoons Cat Stevens.
Even the obligatory polka melody "NOW That's What I Call Polka!," which features renditions of the Top 40 hits many of us are sick of hearing, is fun and fitting, with Al throwing in numerous little instrumentation jokes and performing his accordion with incomparable precision. With that, Al's missteps are few and far between on Mandatory Fun, with the only real sour tracks are "Sports Song," a forgettable parody of the college football fighting songs and "Mission Statement," a droll but admittedly realistic song that features numerous lines pulled directly from the world of white collar America, with the biggest joke of all being that it's parodying the style of Crosby, Stills & Nash, a seventies band that was vocal about anti-establishment views.
Through and through, Mandatory Fun lives up to its title, and reminds me just why I have loved "Weird Al" for many years, to the point where his music videos became a day daily ritual in my middle school life and even to the point where I made him my first concert and bought every one of his CDs. Mandatory Fun is a welcomed addition to the collection, and I hope it isn't the last complete album we see from an artist who still has it years after many thought he wouldn't even make the obituaries.
Recommended tracks (in order): "Tacky," "Foil," "Word Crimes," "Lame Claim to Fame," and "Jackson Park Express."