I sued Ben Affleck . . . .Ah, do I even need a reason?

[yendi]

We got our copy of the new Weird Al album, Straight Outta Lynwood, last night.

It is utterly brilliant.

And, as always, Al's original compositions are every bit as wonderful as his parodies and polkas. Although his eleven-minute "Trapped in the Drive Thru," taking on "Trapped in the Closet," deserves special mention as his parodies go.

He keeps expanding his musical reach, as well. "Pancreas" has a Beach Boys feel, but then the guitars in "I'll sue You" sound, if anything, like Seven Year Bitch.

And the lyrics, as always, kick ass.

The videos on the DVD don't include any of the parodies, which is too bad, as "White and Nerdy" is a work of genius, and both "Trapped in the Drive Thru" and "Canadian Idiot" have great video potential.

But overall, I'm very happy with this disc.

That said, the Dualdisc format sucks every bit as much as I'd expected (wouldn't fit into the slot-loading laptop, and practically begs for smudges and scratches).

Comments

Trapped in the drive-thru

[hockeyrules88.livejournal.com]

"Did I mention the drive-thru?" :) That is probably the funniest song on the album.

[chris-walsh.livejournal.com]

The videos on the DVD don't include any of the parodies

I wonder if the original artists have any say over videos done of their parodies; if so, there might not have been time to get whatever clearances were needed in time to get any such videos onto the disc. Obviously Weird Al scrapped last album's "Couch Potato" video because Eminem wouldn't give him permission for the song parody otherwise, but I wonder if that was an exception. But probably easier all around to concentrate on the songs Al has total control over.

And, hey (I just thought of this) maybe these videos can help more people pay attention to Al's originals, instead of the parodies that are almost always his singles (I think only "You Don't Love Me Anymore" was his only non-parody to be a hit, and Al said people kept thinking it was parodying Extreme's "More Than Words").

I'm lovin' "I'll Sue Ya," and "Pancreas" and "Trapped in the Drive-Thru" made my jaw drop. I say it's a pretty epic album, which is a word I'm glad to associate with Al!

[auryn29a.livejournal.com]

hmm. I thought "I'll Sue You" was kind of a Rage Against the Machine sendoff. Then again, I've never heard Seven Year Bitch.

[gladstone.livejournal.com]

"I'll Sue Ya" is, I think, a Rage Against the Machine style parody, and "Close But No Cigar" is a Cake style parody.

[chris-walsh.livejournal.com]

Yep; he thanks both Rage (as "RATM") and Cake in the liner notes, because now he acknowledges who he's paying homage to in his style tributes. (Before he would leave it for fans to guess, as he explains here in the Ask Al archive.)

[lordrexfear.livejournal.com]

I keep buying good albums, but I look more than forward to giving this a spin a few more times.

The videos in my opinion are awesome, especially "Close, but No Cigar" which you can see design work on here:
http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2006/09/weird-al-cartoons-straight-outta.html
http://funnycute.blogspot.com/