2022, Eric Appel (Brooklyn Nine-Nine) - download
Al (Daniel Radcliffe, The Lost City) grows up in an unhappy home where his dad doesn't approve of the devil music the kids are listening to (polka) and won't let him follow his dream -- playing the accordion and writing new comical lyrics to other people's songs.
In college, Al cannot join any bands because he is an accordion player (I guess polka is no longer in vogue) but in a fit of inspiration, he spontaneously sings "My Bologna" to the music of "My Sharona" and all his college friends think is brilliant, enough to send it into the local radio station AND try to get a record deal from Evil Recording Execs. Eventually he does become famous, rich and begins dating Madonna (Evan Rachel Wood, Westworld), also letting all his fame go to his head. Of course, that is when things go very wrong. Wrong, as in she is kidnapped by Pablo Escobar (Arturo Castro, Narcos) and Al has to go all Rambo on his ass. He has to break up with Madonna because she wants Al to help her take over Pablo's drug empire, so he returns to reconcile with his family.
Honestly, the best thing about the movie, but for snippets of brilliance here and there, was the party Al attends which has just about everyone (!!!) attending: Pee-Wee Herman (Jorma Taccone, MacGruber), Tiny Tim (Demetri Martin, Contagion), Gallagher (Paul F Tompkins, Rutherford Falls), Alice Cooper (Akiva Schafer, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping), Andy Warhol (Conan O'Brien), Salvador Dali (Emo Phillips, The Weird Al Show), Divine (Nina West, Loafy), Wolfman Jack (Jack Black, Jumanjii), and John Deacon (David Dastmalchian, The Suicide Squad). OK, when I say "everyone" I just mean a wide swath of pop culture that somehow seems entirely appropriate in a Weird Al movie.
I'm not sure why you put "his 'music'" in quotes like that. Al does parodies, sure, and that is what he is primarily known for (and yeah, you could debate the musical merit of them, especially if you don't like them), but each of his albums are at least 50% original music, usually in some form of genre or artist pastiche. He's probably the most versatile songwriter of all time. Beyond song parody, he has an incredible ability to disseminate a genre or musical style But because he treads in the comedy/novelty realm, if he is respected it's for his humour, and not nearly as much for his musical acumen as he deserves.
ReplyDeleteI had my Weird Al phase as a pre-teen, which coincided with my Mad Magazine phase...like peanut butter and chocolate those two. But when I started into comedy podcasts back in 2009, I started to catch onto the respect and adulation that Al had in the comedy scene, and then one of my favourite film critics Nathan Rabin did an entire blog series-turned-book of analyzing Al's output song-by-song, album-by-album. It was like I was being given permission to actually liking Al and not just dismissing him as a remnant of my past juvenile predilections ...as if to say I didn't leave behind comic books and action figures and whatnot, so why did I have to leave Al and Mad Magazine behind?
Long story short, I'm an Al fan, but not an Al fanatic. Those people are weird.
You see, I didn't know he did ANY songs that were not based on and parodying original content. So, assuming it was ALL like that, I dismissed any talent as a musician. Plenty of comedians use music as part of their gimmick/act, but there are few I would consider as musicians proper. Yeah, definitely snobby on my part, but I am glad to be wrong. Not glad enough to listen to it, though :)
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