Alfred Yankovic has been making, and remaking, music for three decades and I really don't think the guy's gotten stale – although I must admit some of what he's recently been poking fun at is a bit out of my vocabulary (meaning I don't know anything about Avril Lavigne or Disturbed yet I still hum Men Without Hats' songs).
This album, like most of his recorded output, is a sort of a pop culture state of the union, an aural time capsule of good, bad, and ugly trends and tastes (again with the Men Without Hats). Bad Hair Day album covered the mid-90s and most of the songs, or style of songs featured, were those we at the undergraduate station were very knowing of after playing them time and time again: Soul Asylum, TLC, Foo Fighters, Coolio, and more. After giving it a few spins at home, I brought the disc in to the station so others could appreciate a satirist's taste of the stuff we were spewing and, as expected, everyone loved it – to the point that disc lived at the station for a while.
I was a tad surprised to learn that one of the DJs did in fact pull it out of the music library and into the control room the following month for an attempt at an April's Fool joke. Yankovic's music fits in the "rock" genre, which the undergraduate station inundated the airwaves with from three o'clock until midnight. Obviously by the time 11:50 PM rolls around, the last DJ of the day is winding down the music and getting ready to shut things down for the day. The April's Fool joke of this DJ, then, was to play upon the observation that after the last stopset of the day, roughly 11:50, there would be about ten minutes of music played before the station signed the transmitter off. There was no readily way for him to fit in "requested" Nine Inch Nails, some Beck, R.E.M., Sheryl Crow's All I Want To Do, plus more, in that short a time span.
Of course, there was time.
Thanks to Weird Al and his melody of alternative rock staples titled, appropriately enough, The Alternative Polka, we were able to get all those excellent artists and more more compressed into five minutes of either sing-along silliness or nerve-racking annoyances that was probably the last thing our listening audience expected us to ever air.
Boy, college-run stations could be fun.
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Alternative Polka
(Beck/Karl Stephenson; Dean DeLeo/Eric Kretz/Scott Weiland; David Baerwald/Bill Bottrell/Wyn Cooper/Sheryl Crow/Kevin Gilbert; Trent Reznor; Bill Berry/Peter Buck/Mike Mills/Michael Stipe; Glen Ballard/Alanis Morissette; Billy Corgan; Flea/Anthony Kiedis/Dave Navarro/Chad Smith; Dave Grohl; Chris Cornell; Billie Joe Armstrong/Green Day; Yankovic)
"Weird Al"Yankovic
From the album Bad Hair Day
1996
["Loser" by Beck]
Soy un perdidor
I'm a loser, baby,
So why don't you kill me?
Soy un perdidor
I'm a loser, baby,
So why don't you kill me?
Hey!
["Sex Type Thing" by Stone Temple Pilots]
I am I am I am
I said I wanna get next to you.
I said I'm gonna get close to you.
You wouldn't want me have to hurt you, too.
Hurt you, too.
I know you want what's on my mind.
I know you like what's on my mind.
I know it eats you up inside.
I know you know, you know, you know.
Here I come I come I come I come.
Here I come I come I come.
["All I Want To Do" by Sheryl Crow]
All I wanna do is have some fun.
I gotta feeling I'm not the only one.
All I wanna do is have some fun.
I gotta feeling I'm not the only one.
All I wanna do is have some fun.
Until the sun comes up over Santa Monica Boulevard.
["Closer" by NIN]
Help me--I broke apart my insides.
Help me--I've got no soul to sell.
Help me--The only thing that works for me.
Help me get away from myself.
I wanna *poink* you like an animal.
I wanna feel you from the inside.
I wanna *boing* you like an animal.
My whole existence is flawed.
You get me closer to God.
Hey! Hey! Hey!
["Bang and Blame" by REM]
You bang bang bang bang bang.
Blame blame blame.
You bang bang bang bang bang.
It's not my thing so let it go.
["You Oughta Know" by Alanis Morisette]
'Cause the love that you gave every day wasn't able
to make it enough for you to be open wide
No!
And every time you speak her name
Does she know how you told me
You'd hold me until you died?
'Til you died.
Well you're still alive!
And I'm here to remind you
Of the mess you left when you went away.
It's not fair to deny me
Of the cross I bear that you gave to me.
You-ou-ou-ou-ou oughta know!
Hey!
["Bullet with Butterfly Wings" by Smashing Pumpkins]
Despite all my rage,
I am still just a rat in a cage!
Despite all my rage,
I am still just a rat in a cage!
And someone will say
What is lost can never be saved.
Despite all my rage,
I am still just a rat in a cage!
["My Friends" by Red Hot Chili Peppers]
I love all of you
Hurt by the cold.
So hard and lonely, too
When you don't know yourself.
["I'll Stick Around" by Foo Fighters]
I don't owe you anything!
I don't owe you anything!
I don't owe you anything!
I don't owe you anything!
["Black Hole Sun" by Soundgarden]
Black Hole Sun
Won't you come
And wash away the rain?
Black Hole Sun
Won't you come, won't you come
Black Hole Sun, Black Hole Sun
Won't you come
Black Hole Sun, Black Hole Sun
Won't you come
Black Hole Sun, Black Hole Sun
["Basket Case" by Green Day]
Do you have the time
To listen to me whine
About nothing and everything all at once?
I am one those melodramatic fools.
Neurotic to the bone,
No doubt about it.
Sometimes I give myself the creeps!
Sometimes my mind plays tricks on me!
It all keeps adding up.
I think I'm cracking up.
And am I just paranoid
Or am I just stoned?
Or am I just stoned-oh-oh-oh-oh-ned?
Hey!
["Ear Booker Polka" by Al Yankovic]
