The master of the parody returns with his thirteenth album of spoofs and sound-a-like-songs, packaged up in a great little package with a great front cover of Al as one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse and a DVD of videos of ten of the twelve songs (what, not the 'Perform This Way' video?). So how does it stand in following his previous album, amazingly five years old now, and spawner of perhaps his best 'modern' pastiche tune 'White and Nerdy'?
'Alpocalypse' opens with 'Perform This Way', a spot on homage of the woman of crazy dresses, Lady GaGa, and couldn't sum her rise to fame any better whilst also matching the song. A spot-on musical sound-a-like of the White Stripes follows, even if the lyrics would have been better connected to Internet meme celebrity Chuck Norris, especially when the real-life CNR is actually no longer with us. 'TMZ', an adaptation of the Taylor Swift song, again mixes up the familiarity of the original song with witty looks at modern life, a theme the album keeps returning back to with songs on internet buying, ringtones and junk mail.
'Skipper Dan' is a pleasant enough song even if Weezer is not a band easy to impersonate without having to put the words 'style parody of Weezer' after it to point it out. The song lyrics are quite touching but without the animated video to go with it is sort of washes over you.
His latest polka - a collection of recent songs put to a polka beat - is as inspired as always even if a couple of the tracks have been dragged out of the archive for inclusion (Kid Cudi being a prime example). 'Craigslist', though screaming 'The Door's through its clever production, is the weakest track on the album and the one I'm most likely to skip on future listens.
'Party In The CIA', taking Miley Cyrus' biggest hit and turning into an ode to America's secret service, is possibly his best written tune on the album and 'Ringtone', aside from being funny in itself, sounds like Freddie Mercury could have come back from the dead just to parody his own band.
'Another Tattoo' is another parody that fits in well with the song but isn't one of his best, and 'If That Isn't Love' and 'Whatever You Like' come and go happily but not really blowing anybody away. The album does, though, end on a high with the Jim Steinman parodying 'Stop Forwarding That Crap To Me' which sounds like Meat Loaf could be putting it on his Bat Out Of Hell 4 album whenever he puts that together. The lyrics are cracking too.
Though 'Perform this Way' is the closest the album gets to the genius of 'White and Nerdy', it's still an album worth picking up if you've loved his previous material, and there are many more familiar tracks to a British audience (hands up who'd actually heard 'Ridin'' before 'White and Nerdy' came out? No one. Thoughts so).
There's about three so-so-tunes on the album which is a good hit rate for a comedy album so go and grab a copy before the end of the world comes.
Saturday 9 July 2011
REVIEW: 'Weird Al' Yankovic - Alpocalypse
Posted on 03:33 by Unknown
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