"Weird Al" Yankovic,  Running With Scissors
Reviewed July 14 1999 by

Best to worst:
1)
The Saga Begins   I'd have probably called it "That Anakin Guy" to make the title synch with "American Pie".  That nit aside, it was a dead on parody that perfectly highlights Al's special talent.  I actually like this better than "Yoda", which is saying something.
2)
Jerry Springer   Reminscent of both his Brady Bunch parody of "Safety Dance" and his "Can't Watch This" parody of "Can't Touch This".  Again, a perfect stylistic match.  Some great humor in the lyrics.  I especially liked the spoken dialog in the bridge.
3)
It's All About the Pentiums   Although a direct parody of "It's All About the Bengamins", also does a great job of satarizing the whole rap-music "I've got women and money and you're a loser" motif.  I must say that either Al is a genuine computer geek, or he really did his homework for this one.
4)
Pretty Fly (for a Rabbi)   It's hard to parody a song that is funny to begin with, but I think that Al did a good job.  And, again, he must have done his homework.  All the yiddish in the song cracked me up pretty well.
5)
Your Horoscope for Today   This one worked well for me.  I thought that it showed a great deal of humor.  I especially liked the bit where he sings that the stars say that [I] am a great person... but that [I] know they lie.
6)
Truck Driving Song   This one struck me as being very nearly classic Dr. Demento material, which is a good thing.
7)
Polka Power   I thought that this was a bit weaker than most of his other polkas, but still pretty funny.  It's amazing how some very bad songs (e.g., MmmBop) can actually be improved when put to a polka beat.
8)
My Baby's in Love with Eddie Vedder   Didn't really like this on the first hearing, but it's been growing on me.
9)
Germs    The style is perfect NIN, but the humor falls somewhat flat, IMO.  Did like the "Microscopic Bacteria" riff, however.
10)
The Weird Al Show Theme   It's a funny little theme song, but it just doesn't do much for me.  I guess that I've heard the original theme song enough times that this varient just doesn't bring anything new to me.
11)
Grapefruit Diet   I found this one to be particularly flat in the humor department.  It's thoroughly eclipsed by the rest of Al's food-oriented songs.
12)
Albuquerque   Okay, I'm going to take a lot of heat for this, but I think that this last song just flat out sucked (sorry Al).  No one questions that Al can do a weird stream of conscious narrative.  The thing is, that isn't what sets him apart as an artist.  IMO, Al's genius is his ability to take those random bits of weird thought and to *structure* it.  Maybe if this were just a five minute bit with all going self-indulgently strange, I wouldn't have minded so much, but 10+ fricken minutes!? Nope, this just turned my stomach.  I listened to it twice (to be entirely fair to it) and now I've deleted it from my playlist.  Ah well, even Homer nods.