Published on Sep 27, 2002
For every career high that parody king “Weird Al” Yankovic has
experienced, there has been an equal low. For the smash success of
“Eat It” and the
In 3-D album, there was a flop like
Polka Party! For a commercial comeback like
Even Worse, there was the commercial failure of
UHF. (“Close Personal Friends Of Al”, please take note: I
said
commercial failure, not creative. Insulting this cult film
is like making jokes about Mother Teresa in church.)
Yankovic experienced another career peak with
Off The Deep End, his sixth full-length release (not
including the soundtrack to
UHF or any best-of collections). But one year later,
Yankovic’s creativity hit the wall with
Alapalooza, an album which proves to be an incredible
disappointment.
Lacking a lot of the creative spark behind both parody and
original numbers, this album feels rushed, almost as if Yankovic’s
record company demanded he push something out to capitalize on the
re-direction of attention to his career. Bad move. Most of these
ideas come off less than half-baked, lumbering worse than the
dinosaurs which are mocked on the album’s cover.
Now, I won’t say that a parody of
Jurassic Park was a bad idea – nor can I fully fault
Yankovic for choosing “Macarthur Park” as the song to base his
parody on. But to his younger audience, the original song will be
about as foreign to them as a bar of soap was to Pig Pen in the
“Peanuts” comic strip.Even if the actual parody had some real
substance to it, Yankovic could have overcome this obstacle and
created something memorable. If only this were the case; it really
doesn’t sound like Yankovic’s heart is in this one.
The same complaint could be made for much of
Alapalooza. “Bedrock Anthem” is a poor parody of the Red Hot
Chili Peppers; Flea was onto something when he admitted on VH-1 he
wasn’t fond of this song, saying it wasn’t Yankovic’s best work.
Originals like “Young, Dumb & Ugly,” “Frank’s 2,000″ TV” and
“Waffle King” dare to suggest that Yankovic was running out of gas
creatively. Even the beloved polka medley is nowhere to be found,
replaced instead with a lame-brained attempt at turning Queen’s
“Bohemian Rhapsody” into “Bohemian Polka”. Three words: No, NO,
NO!!!!!
Only two songs merit any type of praise on
Alapalooza. “Livin’ In The Fridge” is, admittedly, not the
best parody that Yankovic has written, but his take on the
then-recent Aerosmith hit does have its moments. The same goes for
“Achy Breaky Song,” from the “kick-a-man-when-he’s-down”
department… though some people today might not remember the
original Billy Ray Cyrus hit, especially the younger crowd. (They
may also miss some of the pop music references that Yankovic drops
in this one.)
While Yankovic would rebound from this effort to prove his
career wasn’t extinct,
Alapalooza is an absolute collection of primordial ooze that
should be left to fossilize.
2002 Christopher Thelen and “The Daily Vault.” All rights
reserved. Review or any portion may not be reproduced without
written permission. Cover art is the intellectual property of
Scotti Brothers Records, and is used for reference purposes
only.