Project Overview
The Problem
A recent featured article by Sam Anderson sported a wonderfully curt summary of the controversy surrounding Weird Al’s claim to Rock immortality. After attending his first Weird Al live show, he wrote:
Weird Al Yankovic was a full-on rock star, a legitimate performance monster. He was not just a parasite of cultural power but — somehow, improbably — a source of it himself.
It’s an enduring question: Is Yankovic a musical artist or an ersatz shadow of actual artists? This question likely represents a key reason behind his omission from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. His credentials speak for themselves:
5 Grammies (16 nominations)
14 studio albums (of which six have gone platinum)
Wrote/starred in a feature length film that has gained a significant cult following (UHF)
Wrote a biopic of himself that stars Daniel Radcliffe
Continued cultural significance for 40 years
Beloved by pop culture insiders, comedians, and rock musicians
I could go on, but you get the idea. Instead of focusing on why Weird Al is not in the Hall, I want to focus more on why he should be on the ballot. One of the patterns I see when I read social media comments about the “Weird Al” Yankovic/Rock Hall “controversy” is that the two parties possess completely different sets of values. The fans come from a place of irrational love while the Rock Hall attempts to be a legitimate source of music history, like a museum. This ontological difference only lower’s Weird Al’s possible nomination and induction to the Rock Hall if it is not defined and acknowledged.
According to Jürgen Habermas, communication and argument tend to be more effective when two parties share language and truth. Further, advocacy arguments, while more difficult to construct, are clearer and stronger than those critical of a position or idea. With those facets in mind, I begin this project is by defining the heuristics (values) of the Rock Hall as a way of framing the argument around Weird Al’s legitimacy as a Rock Icon.
Proposal
“Weird Al” Yankovic deserves to be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I am far from alone in this opinion, but, in contrast to pop journalist Nathan Rabin’s approach and at the risk of sounding pretentious, I am addressing this issue more like a scholar than a fan. When Rabin writes, “The mere existence of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame angrily, haughtily insists that rock and roll music is a matter of profound cultural significance,” his depiction is not entirely inaccurate. The Rock Hall insists that Rock music be thought of as an art form worthy of being displayed in a museum. But, instead of seeing that as an obstacle to Weird Al’s induction, I’m seeing it as an opportunity to reframe the general argument.
Before jumping into the argument, I want to clarify why the argument needs to be reframed to move this conversation forward.
A key difference between scholarship and journalism is that the latter is mostly concerned with describing an event/person in an authentic and genuine way while the former looks more at the phenomena around said event/person. Unfortunately for us scholars, 95% of the human population loses interest in what we do once we get past the journalistic value of a work. It’s difficult to find people who want to really learn about elements of community through the ethnomusicological and sociological study of Juggalo culture compared to people that just want to learn ABOUT Juggalos.
The loss of interest in scholarly interpretations and analyses also extends to Weird Al himself. As musicologist Lily Hirsch (2020) writes after asking Weird Al various musicological questions about his music, “He left the frog dissection to me. If someone was going to ruin his jokes, it wasn’t going to be him” (p. 184). Deep reads into social themes reflected in Weird Al’s music may be fun scholarly exercises, but it’s incredibly unlikely Yankovic expressed his admiration of Judith Butler’s gender theories through “Truck Drivin’ Song” or sought to complement anti-racist theories after reading “White Fragility" through “White & Nerdy.” More likely, Weird Al was just making jokes accompanied by incredibly well-crafted music.
The empty space between the respectful admiration of Rabin and the scholarly rigor of Hirsch frames the overall approach of this project. Both approaches inform and teach audiences about the legitimacy of “Weird Al” Yankovic as a Rock Icon in different ways. In this distinction between journalism and scholarship, I find a possible framework for the epistemic argument for Yankovic’s legitimacy in Rock history. Borrowing from Habermas’ writings on rationality, my goal should not be to simply present an argument clearly, but to consider “how speaking and acting subjects acquire and use knowledge” (p. 8). In other words, presenting the argument using the values and language of the Rock Hall helps me avoid projecting my own bias. Recognizing the Rock Hall’s legitimacy as a purveyor of scholarship and culture also reinforces my desire to communicate rather than berate.
The Rock Hall has four categories for its inductees: Performers, Musical Excellence, Early Influencers, and the Ahmet Ertegun Award. You can read all about them here. Just a cursory glance at the descriptions of the categories with Weird Al’s career and impact in mind leads me to focus on “Performers” for the best category. As much as I think Yankovic “changed the course of music history,” arguing for the “Musical Excellence” category is swinging too much for the fences.
A Priori Assumptions
As this project is a quasi-scholarly pursuit, I want to take a little time to set up the general framework. I won’t get too much into the ontological basis of qualitative argument, but a major part of keeping my own argument valid to others is transparency, empiricism, and acknowledgement of my own biases. Early in this process, I must set up an epistemological scaffolding prior to collecting/discussing any evidence. Even though I’ve clearly stated my thesis above, my argument will be based on induction, and not deduction. From here, I am no longer making the argument for why I believe Weird Al is worthy to be in the Rock Hall. Rather, I ask a broader question regarding what makes “Weird Al” Yankovic worthy of a nomination to the Rock Hall..
The first assumption to tackle is what makes a musical artist “great?” This question is obviously skewed by everything from age to where you grew up to whether your parents were classically trained musicians. Luckily, the Rock Hall provides clear criteria for what it expects of its Performer inductees:
Honoring bands or solo artists which demonstrate musical excellence. Such a descriptor includes (but isn’t limited to) influence on other performers or genres; length and depth of career and catalog; stylistic innovations; or superior technique and skills.
These criteria offer a way to organize the overall project. Representations of these tenets can be seen throughout Weird Al’s career and act as the broader arguments for the project. The evidence surrounding Weird Al’s greatness will be organized by the following categories:
Influence on other performers or genres and Stylistic Innovations
Breakdown of musical genres
The Musical "Double Act”
Length and depth of career and catalogue
Don’t need an article for this criteria as it acted as the catalyst for this project.
Superior technique and skills
Accordion virtuosity
Parody as an artform
Other
A gateway for musical exploration
Concrete Forms
Each of the above criteria will be the topic of a longer article on this website. The articles will dive into questions regarding these definitions of worthiness and whether Weird Al’s music represents them.
Now for the challenging part: how do I organize Weird Al’s 162 studio tracks, let alone his work outside of the albums, like singles or songs he wrote for TV shows? First, I will whittle it down by only using Yankovic’s original works as evidence. As much as I would like to include his most popular song parodies, I fear the Rock Hall would see them as, to apply a phrase from Sam Anderson, “culturally parasitic.” In fact, I wouldn’t disagree with the notion that work comprised of other peoples’ music with the exception of the words would not be legitimate enough for any Hall of Fame, like relief pitchers or designated hitters in baseball’s HOF (don’t @ me…).
Second, I will only single out five original songs. While any song could be mentioned when discussing the criteria-based argument, individual songs will be limited to those that best embody the style/genre being imitated and/or speak to Weird Al’s songwriting/performer proclivity. The songs were chosen based on representation of Yankovic’s entire catalogue along with how well they “work” as a song independent of the success of the lyrical jokes. I will determine how well they work through a musical analysis similar to those done by Nate Sloan and Charlie Harding in the earlier episodes of the Switched on Pop podcast. Only those cultural elements directly related to a song’s content will be included in these analyses. Similarly, lyrical content will be included only insofar as it shows how the musical elements like timbre or chord choice heighten the words. If you would like to learn more about the stories behind the songs or Weird Al’s motivations/inspirations, I highly recommend you check out Nathan Rabin’s book, The Weird Accordion to Al.
In chronological order, the following songs represent “Weird Al” Yankovic’s musical curriculum vitae:
I’ll Be Mellow When I’m Dead
Dare to Be Stupid
One More Minute
Generic Blues
Albuquerque
By exploring the theory of Weird Al’s greatness from these two angles, I hope to create a thorough portfolio of articles that lay out his worthiness in a way that resonates with the decision-makers at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.