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April 22, 2011
Weird Al and Gaga
Now that the confusion has been cleared up and Weird Al Yankovic's parody of Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" is going to be on his next album after all, let's take a look at his song, which is called "Perform This Way".
Well, huh. It's one of Weird Al's laziest parodies, isn't it? It's really just an extended, gentle ribbing of Gaga and her crazy outfits. And since the outfits that she really does wear are pretty much Weird Al-level weird to begin with (bees, meat) he doesn't have very far to go in that direction. Apart from "wrap my small intestines 'round my neck", I don't think he comes up with any ideas for a costume that she wouldn't actually wear. I wish he'd given it another 5 minutes to come up with a theme related to the content of the original song, rather than just saying "Haha, Gaga wore a meat dress, that is so cray-zeee!" It's like commentary on a Lady Gaga concert by Joe Biden.
How about "Shorn This Way", about drag sheep performers? Practically writes itself.
The best Weird Al songs are those that keep the original concept established by a pop song, then go in a completely different, AND FUNNY, direction. Some good examples of this:
"White and Nerdy"
"Amish Paradise"
"It's All About the Pentiums"
These are all hilarious and imaginative in a way that "Perform This Way" completely misses. I'm glad that Gaga had the sense to let him do the song, but I think Weird Al can do better than this for his first Gaga parody. Hope the video's better.
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Comments
Yeah, you know, Weird Al is probably the only other person besides Gaga who would come up with the Muppet dress.
"I'm your Cracker Jack, baby, I pop corn this way!"
Posted by: amy at April 28, 2011 11:57 AM
I didn't realize Weird Al was still alive. And judging by the references to floppy disks and Y2K All About the Pentiums must be 10 or 15 years old. But it reminded me of a wise bit of advice Amy once gave me: if there's something wrong with a man in a suit dancing, then I don't want to be right.
Posted by: T-Rock at May 4, 2011 12:06 PM
If he wanted to be really risqué he could have sung "Born This Gay" and filled the song with gay stereotypes. I'm not sure how funny that would be, but there's more material than shearing sheep.
Posted by: T-Rock at May 4, 2011 12:07 PM
I'm with you on this one. "Shorn This Way" - brilliant. That sounds more like Weird Al.
I have to believe he's sacrificing his usual angle for the sake of putting out an amazingly hilarious video - one where he dons LGG's various outfits. Please oh please have Weird Al wear those contact lenses from "Bad Romance".
Otherwise, I think he should have done "Pop Corn this Way", and dressed as Orville Redenbacher.
Posted by: ORStylee at April 27, 2011 7:39 AM