No, this is not another post about Mel Gibson's girlfriend's song — though the shoddy lyrics of Weird Al's latest tune, "Craigslist," certainly could also have been co-written by the Braveheart star. (Instead, it's kind of a retread of "When the Music's Over" featuring Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek, though not really a direct parody, per se — um, maybe more of an homage?)
So we won't directly call it; instead, we leave it up to you, readers: Clearly, there's already some stiff competition out there and yes, it's only Tuesday, but we have to ask: Is this the worst song you'll hear all week? (Hey, maybe it's the best!)
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It’s an homage… Maybe you didn’t get it?
It’s far from his best, but either you’re being overly ironic or you missed that there’s a joke here.
I don’t think it’s bad at all… it’s just normal Weird Al! (Is it just me, or does that wig make him look more like Brian May than Jim Morrison?)
I’m with the other commenters … you don’t get Weird Al. Maybe you should watch a few more of his videos. And when you get around to watching “Fat”, given your insights so far, be advised that he hasn’t actually lost a lot of weight since then. It was a fat suit.
What’d Weird Al do to you? This seems to me a funny, inconsequential song that shows a bit of the absurdity of our modern culture. Not the best Weird Al song ever, but a solid effort.
And Al has been doing a lot of these sort of genre/band nonspecific parodies recently. About half the tracks off of “Straight Outta Linwood” parody a bands style or a genre, and not one song in particular.
I think this is kind of awesome.
Wierd Al totally rocks!
I may not be a huge Doors fan, but I thought the song was hysterical. “Shoddy” lyrics? Jason, did you need to write something – anything – to try to justify your paycheck this week? Because clearly you didn’t bother to first familiarize yourself with Weird Al’s work and the way he uses unexpected, clever and often silly imagery to highlight some of the absurdities of daily life.
I hate to say it, Jason, but writing an inflammatory headline/question about Weird Al’s work and imagining “connections” in your “story” between Weird Al and Mel Gibson seriously casts doubt on your qualifications as a professional journalist. In future, please do your readers and yourself a favor and stick to writing about people whose work you already KNOW. Dissin’ Weird Al in such an uninformed manner is NOT COOL.
Not a huge Weird Al fan or anything, but I thought it was a lot of fun. The author of this blurb…well, he’s flat-out wrong, methinks.
I like it. I could see how it may not jibe with newer music fans, but I don’t think they’re really the target audience, since Craigslist users tend to trend older anyway.
http://www.quantcast.com/craigslist.org#demographics
His albums pretty much alternate direct parodies and band/genre style parodies. “Mr Popeill” from the same album as “Eat It” is the B-52s; “Dare To be Stupid” is Devo; “Slime Creatures” is Thomas Dolby; “Dog Eat Dog” is Talking Heads, etc.
“Weird Al” Yankovic is a peerless satirist, virtuoso musician, and true class act. He’s a damn American treasure. I’ll cheerfully fistfight any who disagree. And I will win.
Weird Al is an American treasure!
Worst song? Are you crazy? This is FANTASTIC.. Ray Manzarek on Keys for goodness sakes. Ok its not a belly laugh song, its a bit darker than Al’s early work, but it’s better IMO. The guy is a rock legend and this nails it
Riiiiiight. I already heard the worst song I’ll hear this week, and about 8 others, all of them worse than this.
Weird Al, who’s career has outlasted the Doors themselves, singing alongside Ray Manzarek on keyboards, on a note-perfect Doors homage as the worst song I’ll hear all week? Hardly. Next time you decide to create some artificial controversy with an inflammatory headline, and then back off the statement and “leave it up to the readers”, try it on a mediocre song/artist, not a really solid one.
I reject your postulation that this is a bad song, and hope you’ll decide to actually write something next time, not just sling a baseless insult.
KsR