An Obligatory “5 Best X” List
I’m right. You’re wrong. Fight me. Even if you win, you still lose because you’re still wrong
Every blog page about an iconic musical artist needs multiple entries like this…
If you didn’t grow up in the 1980s or 90s, music videos may seem only tangentially related to an artist’s success. But believe me, having a successful music video on MTV was absolutely critical to an artist’s success before Y2K. In the internet age, the rules are a little different, and music videos are more vanity projects than career essentials. The music video was fertile ground for “Weird Al” to expand his artistic vision during the 80s and 90s and open himself up to a whole new audience in the aughts and 2010s.
And he did so with gusto an skill. One of “Weird Al’s” more underrated artistic products are his music videos and, just like his other work in general, there are meticulous details everywhere. So, it is no wonder that Billboard writers consider “Weird Al” to be the number 15/100 video artist of all time (between Radiohead and Busta Rhymes).
Unlike some other lists of “Weird Al’s” music videos, I didn’t just think of the ones I liked. This blog is semi-scholarly, after all. The method for the following list wasn’t the most scientific, but was still bounded by a framework. When I played “Weird Al’s” videos in my head and culled them, I asked two questions:
1) How well does the video accentuate the parody?
2) How effective are the general aesthetics?
I then reviewed the videos on my initial “list” to either confirm or refute the images in my head. Once I winnowed those down, I went back through all of “Weird Al’s” track lists to make sure I didn’t miss anything.
So, without further ado:
#5 Foil
To quote YouTuber Jamel_AKA_Jamal: “Well…that took a turn.”
One of “Weird Al’s” artistic strengths is his ability to juxtapose two things for comedic effect. For his 2014 video, “Foil,” he kicks juxtaposition up to 11.
And it makes perfect sense when you consider the two most well-known uses for aluminum foil. It’s almost TOO obvious.
What makes “Foil” so effective is how all the aesthetics of the original song, “Royals” by Lorde, remain unchanged as both the song and video take a hilarious left turn halfway through. The background music doesn’t change much and the “Weird Al’s” vocals remain detached yet sincere (like Lorde) whether he’s singing about sandwich wrappings or aliens probing your butt. Visually, everything changes from TV infomercial to Alex Jones, but it all makes sense because “Weird Al” maintains the crazy eyes throughout the video.
Accentuated by guest stars Patton Oswalt, Thomas Lennon, and Robert Ben Garant, the “Foil” video adds so much to the original material and acts as a standalone artistic product that reaction videos have become strangely popular on YouTube.
#4 Christmas at Ground Zero
Early in “Weird Al’s” career, his music videos were obviously very low budget. He knows how to make something artistic and funny with next to nothing…which is all he apparently had to work with when putting together the video for his darkly satirical song about celebrating Yuletide under the threat of nuclear annihilation.
As the story goes, “Weird Al” wrote/recorded “Christmas at Ground Zero” in response to his record label’s request. They hated it and refused to fund the music video. So, “Weird Al” paid for the Cold War Era stock footage out of his own pocket.
And wow, does it deliver.
The alternating black-and-white images of flashes in the sky, Santa Claus, houses getting obliterated, and scenes under the mistletoe create the perfect nostalgic backdrop to the Phil Spectre “Wall of Sound.” The only footage in the video that is not stock is the final shot of “Weird Al” and a group of carolers in an empty lot.
Honestly, there are better videos, but this one deserves recognition solely because it’s an incredibly memorable video made for next to nothing. I have to respect that return on investment.
#3 Amish Paradise
This video is just nonstop visual gags. To cite a few:
-Jebediah feeding chickens pizza
-Increasing the speed of the butter churning when the woman walks by
-Lancaster Times front page headline: “Much Butter was Churned”
-Coolio braids under the hat
-Florence Henderson playing Michelle Pfeiffer
-”Weird Al’s” face getting perpetually sweatier, building to a waterfall
-Backwards effect during the final chorus in which “Weird Al” had to say the lyrics backwards
It’s effective because it makes no attempt at coherence outside the song itself. The microcosm of the video is tight and the faux seriousness of everybody in it sells the absurdity of the whole thing. Ridiculousness and slapstick along these lines often feels forced or hackneyed when sustained longer than, say, 30 seconds. But somehow, “Weird Al” is able to present a full video of fairly unrelated visual gags without falling into reductionist repetitions.
#2 Tacky
“Tacky” exemplifies the symbiosis between music and video. The song itself is among “Weird Al’s” stronger song parodies, but this video elevates the delightfully tacky (like Hooters Restaurants) to the self-aware sublime. Plus, whoever did wardrobe for this video deserves every possible award.
It’s both a skewering and celebration of tacky things we do. While I have never taken a selfie at a funeral or twerked at the DMV, I may have had empty liquor bottles around my college apartment for aesthetic purposes. We all own that one tacky article of clothing, have used a coupon on a date, and/or have worn sandals with socks at one (or multiple) time(s). But that’s the fun of the song and the video.
Perhaps the most salient moment of tackiness comes when Kristen Schaal sports a confused look on the line “Bring me shame, I never know why…” Often, if we’re acting or dressing tacky, we’re either unaware or 100% don’t care. And that’s where the video really clarifies the intent of the parody. “Tacky” is not just making fun of tacky people by swapping out words to a popular Pharrell Willliams song - it’s the revelation that we’re all tacky whether we want admit it or not.
Similar to happiness, overthinking tackiness ruins the fun.
Now, where can I get me some of those black and yellow houndstooth pants?
#1 Fat
“Fat” is a no-brainer at #1. It is a perfect shot-for-shot parody of the original video and features “Weird Al” in his iconic fat suit.
I won’t say much else about it except to offer a challenge:
Watch the “Fat” video. Then, immediately watch the original Michael Jackson video and try to not laugh throughout it.
Honorable Mention: Pancreas
The entire song “Pancreas” is an anomaly in my mind. Aside from “Genius in France,” it’s perhaps the most musically expansive work in “Weird Al’s” whole catalogue. But, it’s not very funny. There aren’t any jokes per se. Just facts about the human pancreas as well as how “Weird Al’s” pancreas has some sort of calculable gravitational attraction to other pancreases. It all kind of makes sense when you consider the song is based on the albums Pet Sounds and Smile, where Brian Wilson took The Beach Boys in… let’s say a “new direction” in the late 1960s. But barely.
Now, let’s add a video that makes even less sense!
Similar to “Christmas At Ground Zero,” the music video is mostly stock footage. But instead of Christmas and atom bombs, it’s old footage of live radio broadcasts and somewhat suggestive fruit handling. The stock footage is sometimes manipulated with mirroring effects or edited in places where an actor appears to be approximately mouthing the lyrics of the song.
The old black-and-white music gives off an early David Lynch aesthetic, but then the in-color, anatomically accurate pancreas appears… and the video veers in a direction that’s about as coherent as a Tool music video (at first glance, any way).
This turn is really more confusing than anything, but I think that’s the point. The video can be interpreted as Dadaist. Succinctly, Dadaism can be summarized as:
Through creative absurdities, dadaists protest and frantically react against the frivolities that encapsulate the modern world.
So, for all I know, I’m thinking way too hard about this and “Weird Al” didn’t intend for the song to be any deeper than what’s on the surface. But if “Weird Al” knows anything, he knows how nerds think. And perhaps that’s the joke. He knows if he produced some vague, faux-artistic absurdity, people like me would pour over the details in futility, hoping to find meaning in the randomness - only to be reminded that some knowledge is beyond our scope. The abyssal dissonance will never become consonant, no matter how hard we furrow our brows in an effort to will random frivolities into significance. Therefore, life itself is the joke with the absolute certainty of oblivion as the punchline.
Touche, Mr. Yankovic.