Slashdot Mirror
Weird Al Says "Twitter Saved My Album"
nudnik72 writes "Weird Al's latest album, Alpocalypse, was released today, but might not have if his fans hadn't taken his cause to twitter Al says. Yankovic had a well publicized disagreement with Lady Gaga's management over his parody of her song Born This Way. Within 24 hours of his fans spreading the word on the internet, Gaga's people reversed course and approved the parody, saying the whole thing was just a mix-up. The King of Pop Parodies explains that this wasn't the first time a music label and the parodied artist didn't see eye-to-eye."
There is no such thing as bad publicity.
A little show / podcast known as "Pop Culture Happy Hour" played a huge part in this as well.
Where genius and insanity become confused true wisdom is found
Al released the entire Alpocalypse album for free legal streaming if you want to hear it before you buy. It's a great album!
I preordered it (got the album a few days ago) and we're seeing a show in Toronto in July. Believe me, he and the band put on a hell of a performance.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
I can't believe a person as big of a publicity hound as Lady Gaga would every have a problem with a Weird Al parody. It means at the very least you've done a track that has hit the public consciousness and that you're famous. Plus she's been on shows like Graham Norton where you're sure to get made fun of in a good natured way.
Probably a goon in the entourage taking upon him/herself to make a decision.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Twats!
Coolio's a bitch. Straight up!
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
No, not the joke, literally.
LG said that her publicist had never actually sent her the song and just said no. Obviously full of himself unlike Lady GaGa, whom I admire because she is definitely doing this all from the understanding the whole thing is kind of a laugh...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
His career and new music is still just as relevant (whatever level you deem that to be) after 30 years. Not too many artists performing today can say that.
See here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ss_BmTGv43M ...
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
... you've made it. Now get off my lawn!
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
From what I have seen in interviews, etc. Lady Gaga seems to have her head screwed on straight, a lot moreso than self-obsessed legal departments and Elvis-hip-gyration-fearing for-profit TV preachers. She's messing with the social meme-scape (there, I invented a word!) and doing so with intelligence. No surprise at all that she adores Weird Al and would think that being included in a Weird Al album is a high honor for a pop singer.
And, no surprise at all that her label's lawyer-trash didn't bother to talk to her first. From my second-hand experience with label legaloids, they hold the performers in barely-concealed contempt, the fans in fully unconcealed contempt. Dante is not my model of theological thought, but I can agree with him on one thing: Bolgia Nine must be packed with RIAA lawyers and the legal departments that try to chain down the performers.
Everybody gets what the majority deserves.
It is, watch the darn thing. Al jumped the shark on this one. The Sloppy looking cut and paste of his face makes it really creepy. Can't even get into the parody because of it.
I cant ever listen to Lola or Girls Just Want to Have Fun with out hearing the Weird Al versions in my head.
so don't do it on slashdot, either.
Track your TV Shows with your iPhone - FREE
I've also heard that he is a Class A nice guy in real life, too. He's like a hero to nerds/geeks/accordion players everywhere.
This is worse
0 = 1 + e^(Alt something)
I was an immense fan of "In 3D", and one of the most notable things about it is the polka versions of classics (Hey Jude, My Generation, etc.) Some of the parodies were pending classics, like Eat It, Rye or the Kaiser, and King of Suede.
But we've run out of classics. Can you really parody Lady Gaga, herself essentially a parody of the music industry today?
Al is a gifted musician; his grasp of style and ability to mimic it are extraordinary: Songs like Mr. Popeil and Dog Eat Dog show a tremendous grasp of what makes the B-52s and the Talking Heads distinctive. Often his original works are funnier than the parodies, especially since parody so often relies on the meat of source material. Today's source material doesn't seem to HAVE any meat.
I looked at the video of his Lady Gaga parody. It's obviously a huge amount of work, and it's funny for that. That kind of effort is what Lady Gaga brings to the table, when the song material is forgettable.
This is not a dig on Al; it's a dig on the music industry, which as we've often noted here is dying, and with good reason. I'm thrilled that Al is still applying his tremendous gifts. I just wish he had better stuff to work with.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
What do you expect? Slashdot FORCES you to put something in the subject, even though most people don't even read them unless the commenter does something stupid like start their comment in the subject.
I think Perform This Way is a hoot. The video is weird, but it is Weird Al.
If you didn't know which was the original and which was the parody, it might be hard to tell which was which.
...laura, Lady Gaga fan
What I am continually amazed by is just how large a range he and his band have. They do tons of different styles when parodying songs and do them extremely well.
Particularly impressive are the style parodies, because they are always so dead on. They really can capture the style of a band and create a new tune that sounds just right.
All in all not an easy thing to do, and no small part of the reason he can keep relevant. If he and his band only had one or two styles they could do, the parodies would work so well. That they can take on more or less any band's style and pull it off to near perfection is why a parody he does today can be just as funny as one he did 30 years ago.
Too bad his French is beyond bad.
Peetee = ???
Paytay = Pété
It means "farted" in French
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
It could be argued that this was something of a publicity stunt. The song parody was protected free speech. Weird Al didn't have to ask Lady Gaga for permission to satirize her work. He was just being polite.
A recent example of satirical free speech was Al Franken's book "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right" was sued for infringement of Fox New's trademark "Fair and Balanced" but the court ruled that because Franken's title was a parody of the trademark it was protected free speech.
I love that his album got so much more exposure from the conflict, but let's not forget that parody and satire are constitutionally protected forms of speech. Lady Gaga and the Record Labels lacked a legal foot to stand on in preventing the release of this album.
i ~ Celebrating Science, Cyberspace, Speculation
I've had the opportunity to meet him at a concert when I was one of his extras. He is a good man and has a wonderful family. He treats people with respect it's difficult to not give it back to him... especially when he requests permission to do all of the spoofs even though he doesn't legally need to do so.
And I can't listen to several songs without the Weird Al spoof popping into my head either.
Best wishes to you, Weird Al!
OCO is Loco
I hate Arial or whatever this font is, because everything about "Al is great" translates to "Artificial Intelligence is great" by my brain's first filter. It's almost as bad as 1 vs. l in Courier.
Summary isn't quite right. Gaga herself approved it. Here's the official story:
Part 1: http://alyankovic.wordpress.com/the-gaga-saga/
Part 2: http://alyankovic.wordpress.com/2011/04/20/gaga-update/
Summary isn't quite right. Gaga herself approved it. Here's the official story:
Part 1: http://alyankovic.wordpress.com/the-gaga-saga/
Part 2: http://alyankovic.wordpress.com/2011/04/20/gaga-update/
If you don't like Lady Gaga (and neither do I) just say it and move on. You don't need to justify it, if it doesn't float your boat, it doesn't float your boat.
The music industry is dying, but that has nothing to do with what it puts out. Slashdot was wrong then, and it's still wrong now.
We haven't run out of classic music, we're making new classic music all the time. "Classic" is about attachments or memories you form with music, and often during formative years. Did you happen to listen to the B-52s or the Talking Heads growing up? It's also about taste, for example I find most stuff that gets labelled "Classic Rock" relentlessly boring. Merzbow has fans. Noise rock has fans. It's rarely about objective quality, and even if it were, who decides what's quality?
You may not like or feel any attachment to modern music, but let's not pretend nobody does.
What I am continually amazed by is just how large a range he and his band have. They do tons of different styles when parodying songs and do them extremely well.
Particularly impressive are the style parodies, because they are always so dead on. They really can capture the style of a band and create a new tune that sounds just right.
Actually I think Weird Al is in kind of a unique and special place as a musician. Apart from the matter of being technically able to perform different styles, his niche in the musical world gives him the fairly unique opportunity to try different styles freely. Other musicians, once they're popular, may get boxed in by their past hits - fans will expect them to do similar work in the future. Al can do just about anything (at least within the realm of "popular music"). The fact that "Smells Like Nirvana" was a big hit for him doesn't mean he's forever a grunge artist.
Bow-ties are cool.
I hardly think his album would have been in trouble had that single song not made the cut. As worst, they would have had to remove the track from the album. He went through a similar situation with James Blunt's "You're Beautiful." In the end, the song ("You're Pitiful") didn't make the album but Weird Al released it for free download on his website.
Freedom is drinking a beer in the park when you're supposed to be at work.
... to hate Twitter.
This sig is not paradoxical or ironic.
Now I'm going to have nightmares about that guys face
Our culture doesn't get smarter, it just finds new ways of being retarded.
What I am continually amazed by is just how large a range he and his band have. They do tons of different styles when parodying songs and do them extremely well.
I have lost count of the times I've been listening to a radio station and heard what I thought was a Weird Al song playing, then thinking "those aren't the right words", only to realize I was hearing the original artist doing their less-than-impressive original version.
And hearing an original song and thinking "that sounds so much better when sung to a polka beat..." "Black hole sun ...", for example.
I think you'll find that he does, in fact, have a style that he weaves into every song he plays. Weird Al is, first and foremost, a polka artist.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Sadly, went to buy the MP3s online and they won't let me give them money for them because I live in NZ. Second stop was the TPB, where it was easy as to get.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:White_Nerdy_YOU_SUCK_cropped.jpg
-- TLC, "Waterfalls"
-- "Weird Al" Yankovic, "Phony Calls"
-- Lady Gaga, "Born This Way"
-- "Weird Al" Yankovic, "Perform This Way"
What I typically do is write a comment, and then copy part of the comment to the subject line. This works for both tweet length comments and multi-paragraph point-by-point rebuttals.
Having a distinct subject for each of your comments helps when you go back and check your Slashdot messages for replies. If you reply to two comments that have the same subject, and you just leave the "Re:" in place, you won't be able to immediately tell the difference between replies to one comment and replies to another comment. But if all your comments have a distinct subject, and you've already looked at replies to one comment, you can delete other Slashdot messages about the same subject because you know they're about replies to the same comment.
Eat it? You mean beat it? Recall that song being slammed by oldies. Old people never like new music.
There are two kinds of people, those who let their musical taste be determined by peer pressure and those who don't. Those who let peer pressure decide their taste always complain that other music sucks because they might have to go against group think otherwise. You loved the music of your youth because that is what people told you to like. You now hate the music of todays youth because that is what your peers are telling you to do.
Circle of life.
The other kind? Well, that would be my kind. We like our own music, never play anything else and eat the raw liver of anyone trying to expose us to anything new or different.
Perform This Way is one of the more boring tracks off the album anyway. Sure, it probably has the most mainstream attraction, but who cares?!
This may or may not affect your purchasing decision.
This. I'd add DEVO to that category, and Al's paid tribute to them too, back in the 80's: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMhwddNQSWQ
Ask Me About... The 80's!
the SMTP headers.
what you did there.
Honestly I don't like it either, but for this particular use it fit just right. Allow some artistic license please. It is the exception that proves the rule.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Was anyone else let down by Al's new album?
It's good, but 5 previously released tracks that I already own? C'mon!
Apparently for Beverley Hillbillies (Money for Nothing) Mark Knopfler insisted on playing guitar for the album version. Since Knopfler had been playing the song for so long he was much more relaxed with it and Weird Al's Guitarist Jim West could play it more like the original version...
"Her" is a meat puppet. Actors don't sue when someone rips of "their" film, do they?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Yeah, well, he's still a genius in France.
I am not devoid of humor.
My parents had a strict No Popular Radio rule when I was a young lad yet, for some reason, had a "Weird Al" Escape Clause -- I could listen to all the "Weird Al" I wanted, but never the source material.
To this day, I can't hear "Lola", "Hey Ricky", "I Love Rock And Roll", "Ride The Pony" and countless other songs that "debuted" in Yankovic form in my life without singing the "Weird Al" version.
I wish I had a kryptonite cross, because then you could keep Dracula and Superman away.
They did "Beverley Hillbillies" at the show I attended last month. Jim West is a good guitarist, but it's easy to see why Knopfler wanted to play the riff -- it just doesn't sound right with anyone else picking away at it.
I wish I had a kryptonite cross, because then you could keep Dracula and Superman away.
changing that mentality.... It's like pissing into the ocean to change the tide.
The song parody was protected free speech. Weird Al didn't have to ask Lady Gaga for permission to satirize her work. He was just being polite.
Under copyright laws, it's true that she (probably) can't win a lawsuit. However, if he asks permission, he can be listed as writer or as co-writer (I forget which) of the parody song lyrics, and therefore get his share of the lyrics profits from the album and royalties from airplay, in addition to his "singer" royalties. Without permission, he cannot get any songwriter money, and has to live on just the "singer" share. The singer share isn't enough to live on (and Al has said so before in documentaries ), so that written permission is financially essential (beyond any moral issues).
Consider the old joke of the drummer in the back of the plane, while the lead singer (and main songwriter) flies with two seats in first class (one for the guitar). This is why bands like Genesis are so fastidious about keeping all songwriting "in house": the temptation for your people to want more than your 1/x of the pie is too tempting.
I think everyone here has wanted to say this to at least a few people in their lives. It's a great rip on a Jim Steinman/Meatloaf-style track, and an important message the whole world needs to hear:
Stop Forwarding That Crap To Me
it's been a common occurrence on /. since I've been around here, starting in 1998.
Too bad his French is beyond bad.
Peetee = ???
Paytay = Pété
It means "farted" in French
I'd like to know the truth of it. I'd guess it was intentional. No one seems to hate a bad accent/pronunciation as much as the french.