More than Replicating, Finding New Life
Parody is a weird thing. Like criticism, parasites, and music theory, it can’t exist without an original work or host. It is no wonder that “Weird Al” Yankovic seems to not occupy the same space in some peoples’ minds as other Rock Hall inductees. Critics don’t usually receive awards from the arts they criticize. Parasites steal nutrients and resources from a host that does all the real work. And music theory…well…I won’t even go there.
But parody is more than just jokes that leech off better art, it’s a dual form of art. Lily Hirsch posits that “We can identify a work as a parody, but parody is also a verb, an action – we parody another work or its cultural backdrop and norms. The juxtaposition of two works has an aim, perhaps more than one” (p. 23). By thinking of parody as a contrast to an art with its own goals, it can become its own independent work that can give the original work new life in a type of cultural symbiosis.
The potentially symbiotic relationship between parody and its source material can come in many forms, but I’m going to limit them by keeping it close to Weird Al’s particular set of skills.
“Weird Al” Yankovic expanded my musical taste. He is a musically eclectic polyglot who meticulously analyzes and recreates music at the atomic level. This attention is why even some of his more forgettable material is still art worth recognizing. After listening to the twists and turns of his Beach Boys style-parody, Pancreas, it occurred to me that I had never actually listened to the entire “Pet Sounds” album despite knowing its significance. I pride myself as both a consumer, teacher, and scholar in music, yet I still have massive blind spots in my musical knowledge. I’ve recently made deep dives into Zydeco music, Sparks, DEVO, and Brian Wilson that I may not have otherwise made had it not been for “Weird Al” Yankovic
Yankovic’s music, whether through direct or style parody, can open up musical worlds to unsuspecting listeners. A frequent story among Weird Al fans is how looking up the source material for a parody sparked a new musical love. Personally, I don’t know how I made it this far into my life without giving both DEVO and Sparks serious listens. But, here we are.
Weird Al also reigns as a pop culture standard bearer and artists sometimes consider it an honor to be the inspiration for one of his parodies. When Yankovic chooses a target, it’s because he enjoys and respects that art…with little exception. In this sense, part of the parody lies in Weird Al tapping into something primal, something at the root of culture. Sam Anderson sums it up well:
He is a timeless force that expresses itself through hyperspecific cultural moments, the way heat from the center of the earth manifests, on the surface, through the particularity of geysers...Whatever is popular at the moment, Yankovic can hack into its source code and reprogram it.
Those cultural moments, once identified, become preserved in a type of musical formaldehyde through Weird Al’s music. His polka medleys act as particularly effective sanctuaries for pop ephemera.
If you’re unfamiliar with the polka medleys, all you need to ask is: “What would Losing My Religion by REM sound like as a polka?” These medleys appear on most of “Weird Al” Yankovic’s albums and act as musical time capsules that somehow sound fresher than the songs that comprise them, especially after the songs have fallen out of grace with the general public.
But Weird Al doesn’t just haphazardly choose songs off the radio (or streaming service), change out the guitars and bass with accordion and tuba, and go to town. These medleys are carefully constructed so that the work feels timeless.
Enduring cultural capital and forgettable one-hit wonders exist simultaneously in the polkas. Pop culture endurance is difficult to predict and most music just gets thrown down the memory hole after a few short months, only to be remembered in snippets when you hear what used to be “your jam” playing on the CVS muzak while you compare active ingredients in different brands of nasal decongestants. Nathan Rabin proposes that ““Weird Al“ posess[es] a peerless genius for discerning what pop music will endure and what history will quickly forget” ( p. 181). Yankovic rescues forgettable, formulaic pop culture and gives it new, timeless life through polka. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Polka Face, off his 2011 album, “Alpocalypse.”
Monster hits like Tik Tok by Ke$ha, I Kissed a Girl by Katy Perry, and Poker Face by Lady Gaga are peppered with briefly relevant pop songs like Fireflies by Owl City. When listening to the original songs, the trio of monster hits still sound fairly fresh ten years later, but “Fireflies” sounds almost immediately dated as soon as the opening synthesizer pings into your consciousness. Appropriately, all the tunes in Yankovic’s medleys are equal and worthy of his attention and craftwork. Polka makes all tunes equal, as if Weird Al were the musical Handicapper General.
Through parody (and in some cases, polka), Weird Al’s creations give access to and preserve the music it references. Even when a song feels like a throwaway reference or an obvious mark, Yankovic puts care and thought into his craft. As an exemplar case, the lead in to the “Tik Tok” segment of “Polka Face” is none other than the Tick Tock Polka by Frank Yankovic (no relation)!
As I’ve argued elsewhere in this project, it could be said that any modern creation is a parody of what came before it. Hell, there are instances where Yankovic parodies himself. But what “Weird Al” Yankovic does with pop music is what Dana Carvey did with George HW Bush: preserve memories through imitation and comedy. It takes legitimate musical skills and knowledge to pull that off in any form of pop culture, let alone music.