"Weird Al" Yankovic- Alpocalypse

Purchased at Schoolkids Records in Raleigh, NC, on 7/1/11

“The “Eat It” and “White and Nerdy” guy” is back! Five years after his 2006 bestseller “Straight Outta Lynwood”, “Weird Al” Yankovic, parodist extraordinaire and polka enthusiast, returns with “Alpocalypse”, a collection of songs that pokes fun at the most popular songs of the second half of the 00’s (“aughts?”).

There’s “TMZ”, a parody of the Taylor Swift song “You Belong with Me”, telling an imaginary celebrity about the horrors of the celeb gossip website, giving Yankovic a great chance to attack the narcissistic nature of celebrity news and culture, sarcastically delivering the line “You’re sorta famous, a minor celebrity, and so it only makes sense the world would be obsessed with every single thing you do.” “Another Tattoo” is a tale of ink and regret, set to B.O.B. and Bruno Mars’ smash single “Nothin’ On You”. And there’s “Whatever You Like”, a parody of the song of the same name, focusing on living in economical hardship.

And of course, there’s the biting lead single, “Perform This Way”, a parody of the hypocritical Lady Gaga song “Born This Way”, referencing everything from the pop star’s 2011 Grammy performance (“My mother told me, when I was hatched, act like a superstar”) to her meat dress (“I bet you haven’t seen a skirt-steak worn this way”), to her “shocking” stage costumes (“I’ll wear a porcupine on my head, on a W-H-I-M”), and to her rabid fanbase (“my little monsters pray lots, cause I perform this way”), all from the perspective of Gaga herself, saying that “I’m not crazy, I perform this way.”


In addition to the parodies, “Weird Al” copies the style of a few legendary artists on this album that have been around before any of the other parodies’ inspiration song creators began performing. The best of these is probably “Craigslist”, a song about the infamous classified website, performed in the style of the Doors. “Weird Al” does a spot-on impression of late Doors vocalist Jim Morrison, and in terms of vocal performance, it’s one of the best songs he’s ever recorded. Yankovic’s drummer, John "Bermuda" Schwartz, replicates Doors drummer John Densmore’s jazzy style to perfection, and Jim "Kimo" West’s guitar at the start of the song has the bluesy, fuzzy “Doors tone” created by that band’s guitar player, Robby Krieger. To top it off, Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek plays his trademark keys on the track, giving the parody a genuine “Doors Sound”, similar to the sixties band’s hits “Light My Fire” and “The End”.

There’s also “Ringtone”, performed in the style of Queen, complete with cluster-chord harmonies, erratic song structure, distorted guitar leads, drum fills a la Roger Taylor, and quasi-classical piano. “CNR” is a tribute to the White Stripes, full of chunky guitar riffs and bluesy howling vocals, brilliantly executed by Yankovic himself. And “If That Isn’t Love” sounds like a forgotten Hanson track.
In addition, “Alpocalypse” features a couple of wonderful original songs of Yankovic’s. “Stop Forwarding That Crap To Me”, the closing track of the album, is a “beautiful” power ballad about the perils of the internet in a similar vein to “Lynwood’s” “Don’t Download This Song”, and the upbeat “Skipper Dan” is arguably the happiest song ever written about broken dreams, as the song’s title character laments his job as a jungle cruise tour guide, despite having studied Uta Hagen and Shakespeare at Julliard.

No “Weird Al” album would be complete without one of his signature polka medleys. “Polka Face” is one of the best he’s ever done, including various Top 40 hits originally performed by Katy Perry, Pink, Justin Beiber, Britney Spears, Ladies Gaga and Antebellum, and even Jamie Foxx, among others.

“Alpocalypse” is a hilarious new record from “Weird Al” Yankovic that is as satirically funny as it is biting to an ever-changing popular music industry. It also has a fantastic album cover.