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.