MAKE THE ROCK HALL "WEIRD"

Press Stuff

{We've included the following article in our public archive because it was such a positive foreign press mention, despite a major error the writer made at the end. We'll go into that some more after the article.)

Method in Weird Al's Hall of Fame madness

by Simon Collins
The West Australian
May 9, 2021

A campaign to get "Weird Al" Yankovic into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has spread to Australia, and that's no joke.

Greg Method, a big fan of the master of rock parody, has already gathered thousands of signatures for his Make the Rock Hall "Weird" petition--including those of the Knack's Doug Fieger and "American Pie" legend Don McLean--and now he wants Aussie fans to join his crusade.

Method said that Yankovic's popularity has risen here since his 2003 Poodle Hat tour.

"But really, this campaign is a chance for fans in every country to show how much they love Al," he said.

"No other artist has been nearly as successful at making fun of rock and roll. The spirit of rock and roll is all about freedom and non-conformity, and there is perhaps no better quality to show that than the ability to laugh at oneself."

Method hopes that by next year Yankovic will be in the Hall of Fame, rubbing shoulders with acts he's sent up, such as Michael Jackson ("Eat It," "Fat"), James Brown ("Living with a Hernia"), Aerosmith ("Livin' in the Fridge"), and Bob Dylan ("Bob"). If inducted, he'd also join his hero Frank Zappa, but Al will have to wait. Method has forgotten that artists become eligible for induction 25 years after the release of their first record, and Yankovic's self-titled debut album was unleashed in 1983.

So, we'll all have to wait until 2008 and until then Method can "Dare to be Stupid."

Okay, as said earlier, the writer makes one big error in his article. He wrote, "Method has forgotten that artists become eligible for induction 25 years after the release of their first record, and Yankovic's self-titled debut album was unleashed in 1983."

That one part wouldn't have bothered Greg so much if it wasn't for the fact that the writer had contacted him before the article was published to verify that point.

Here is the e-mail Mr. Collins sent Greg:

Subject: Make the Rock Hall "Weird"
Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2021 16:44:48 +0800
From: "Simon Collins" <(we'll be kind and not publish his address)>
To: <(we're just removing our own press address to avoid spambots)>

Hi Greg,
As a big fan of "Weird Al" I'm all for the great man being inducted, but didn't his first record come out in 1983, and artists only become eligible 25 years after the release of their first album?

Please explain?
Cheers,
Simon

Greg quickly responded:

Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2021 11:10:40 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Greg Method"
Subject: Re: Make the Rock Hall "Weird"
To: "Simon Collins" <(again, we'll be kind)>

Simon,

First of all, thank you so much for your interest in our campaign.

<< As a big fan of "Weird Al" I'm all for the great man being inducted, but didn't his first record come out in 1983, and artists only become eligible 25 years after the release of their first album? >>

Actually, according to the Rock Hall rules, artists become eligible twenty-five years after their first national record release, which does include singles in addition to albums. You're correct that Al's first album was released in 1983, however his first single, "My Bologna," was released by Capitol in December 1979.

The Rock Hall seems to make this point purposefully vague for whatever reason, but I have spoken with a few pop music journalists in my area about this, and they have confirmed that singles do in fact count.

So yes, Al is now eligible. In fact, he was already eligible for this year's most recent induction class, the one that included U2 and the Pretenders. Last summer we spent six weeks circulating a petition around the United States, on which we collected nearly 3,000 signatures. The foundation did receive our massive petition in September, but evidently it was too late to make a difference for this last class.

If you have any other questions, by all means please let me know. And thanks again for your interest. :)

take care,
Greg

Make the Rock Hall "Weird"
www.dohtem.com/al

So, as you can see, this correspondence took place on April 28, and the article was published over a week later on May 9. Mr. Collins certainly had plenty of time to check his inbox and correct his story but for some reason chose not to. Kinda makes one wonder why he even wrote in the first place, doesn't it?

Again, it was still a nice article (heck, it even mentioned "Bob!") despite its lack of research or willingness to correct a huge error, hence its inclusion here. We're still grateful for all of the help Al's Australian fans have offered.

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