Album Review: 02 "Weird Al" Yankovic Jumping Off The Deep End

 Album Review: 02
"Weird Al" Yankovic Diving Off The Deep End

This review was originally posted on rateyourmusic. It was one of the reviews I was assigned in the "Go Review That Album" game on their community forums. This version of the review has had some editing and corrections.

"Weird Al" Yankovic Off The Deep End

1992 Scotti Brothers Records 72392 75256-2

*****

"Now I'm mumblin' and I'm screamin'

And I don't know what I'm singin' 

Crank the volume, ears are bleedin'

I still don't know what I'm singin'

We're so loud and incoherent

Boy, this oughta bug your parents

Yeah"

This is one of those "Weird Al" albums that I'm not sure where to place in my favorites order. I really enjoy it but there are a few of his albums I like even more. My personal record for listening to an album multiple times on consecutive days (when I put a CD in my car player and keep listening to it whenever I'm driving around) is for 4 to 5 weeks and actually for Poodle Hat. Pat Benatar's - Go! comes in second with something like 3 1/2 weeks.) I feel like doing a track by track short semi-analysis here, which is something I should do more often but don't have nearly the time to do for every review.

The first track and I think first single from this album is Smells Like Nirvana and of course the album cover art work parodies the Nirvana album that Smells Like Teen Spirit was off of. Catch the video for it if you can, Al even got the old janitor from the original Nirvana video to appear. Next we have original song Trigger Happy which is a terriffic Beach Boys/Surf Music style parody that the NRA should really enjoy. For track 3 we have one of my all-time fave Al songs. I Can't Watch This the token TV song and a cleaver parody of MC Hammer's Can't Touch This. Then we have Al's token Polka song (where he takes the real lyrics of songs he couldn't get permission to parody or just wants to take a small jab at, and puts them in Polka style) for the album Polka Your Eyes Out I love the Ice, Ice Baby finale on it. A good chuckle comes from the next original song I was Only Kidding. Track 6 The White Stuff Parodies the New Kids on The Block You Got It (The Right Stuff) by talking about Oreo cookies. Next track is original song When I Was Your Age (I think it is a parody of Don Henley's song style) this song of course is about the old cliche of the older generation telling the younger generation not to whine about your so called difficulties and frustrations, because the older generation had greater difficulties and more frustrations [Insert reference to Monty Python sketch about living on the street/in a box/in a shoe box etc... here.]. Ah another fave and The token food stylings song Taco Grande gets indigestion by poking fun at Rico Suave by Gerardo. The next original song Airline Amy we join the Mile-High-Club with a stewardess. Perfect example of one-hit-wonder career dies but Al lives on with Plumbing Song which backs up the waterpipes of two songs from those non-singers Milli Vanilli - Baby Don't Forget My Number and Blame It On The Rain. We conclude this ALdult Swim with the original song You Don't Love Me Anymore which is in the styling of James Taylor and is perhaps Al's biggest original hit.

This is not the greatest "Weird Al" Album, but it is up slightly under the top dogs of Poodle hat and Straight Outta Lynwood. In other words no "Weird Al" Yankovic album collection is complete without it.

Update: Oh I forgot to mention that my copy of this CD is one of the original releases that has a hidden track at the very end, ten minutes after the end of You Don't Love Me Anymore. According to good old reliable (Not, well OK sometimes) Wikipedia later pressings of Off The Deep End deleted the hidden track (titled Bite Me!) and the 10 minutes of silence between the last listed track and it.

Note: I over-rate "Weird Al" Albums, because he is one of my fave acts. It is fun to hear his twisted version of an overexposed song that America's Youth are eating up. I get a kick out of the one-hit-wonders that he has parodied. They are no longer in the business, but Al is still going strong. I first Heard Al on the Doctor Demento Show, back in the MY Bologna days, been a fan ever since. Saw him once at a record signing for Even Worse, he signed my copy of The Authorized Al book. I asked him if It's Still Billy Joel To Me would ever be officially released, and he gave me a bizarre grimace that only he could make, and explained he was slightly embarrassed by it and apologized to Billy Joel over it, he never asked permission for it and probably never will. That song then will never have an official release.