Sheesh, we can barely keep up with the press mentions this week (we're up to three, woo-hoo!!). The latest one comes from the most surprising of places...Rolling Stone's daily music news blog! Yeah, Rolling Stone, pop music's premier news magazine and, according to some, the secret svengali behind the Rock Hall proceedings. This is the very first time the publication has covered the campaign.
Even though it starts off promising enough, with the headline "Fans to Rock Hall: Induct this Weirdo" and some basic info that at least shows some research was involved, in the middle the blurb takes a sinister left turn, almost as if someone walked past writer Christian Hoard and said, "Dude, you're seriously writing about 'Weird Al' Yankovic? What's the matter with you? You used to be cool, man, but now you're just lame. We had plans, you and I. We were going to form our own band, TurpenTime, and we were going to open for the New Cars, man! I hate you now, you poser."
Oh, but we tease Rolling Stone and its not ready for prime time bloggers. The blurb suddenly explains why Al should not get inducted, using such relevant evidence as a seven-and-a-half-year-old Onion article and the non-fact that Al's "entire creative process involves simply rejiggering the lyrics to huge pop hits for parodies that really ain't all that clever." And all this time you all probably thought that such songs as "Dare To Be Stupid," "The Night Santa Went Crazy," and the recent hit "Don't Download This Song" were originals, huh? Nope, they're all among them there "rejiggers" that Al likes to do...whatever. Fortunately, a few visitors to the site had already come to Al's rescue on that "fact."
As for Al's actual parodies, which supposedly "really ain't all that clever" (dag nabbit), that's of course a matter of opinion. We respect the good folks at Rolling Stone, but we certainly don't agree with that particular assessment. After all, in the last year alone "White & Nerdy" has been called "tremendous," while "Trapped In The Drive-Thru" has been hailed as "genius." In fact, one publication included the latter in its list of the one hundred greatest songs of 2006. Now, let's see, where did all that praise come from...hmm...oh wait, that's it! Rolling Stone! Of course, all the positive stuff was in the print edition, but who reads that anymore?
But ultimately the blurb's 180 sort of backfires, as Hoard writes that "homeboy [Al, evidently] is the most famous parody artist of all time and also managed to make a two-decades-plus career of it. He's made us laugh several times. But he's also pop music's answer to 'Mad Magazine.'" Good enough reason for us to get him inducted.
