• AllMyVinyl #54
• Band: Weird Al Yankovic
• Album Title: Dare to be Stupid
• Release Date: 18 Jun 1985
• Date purchased: N/A – likely Day 1
• Location purchased: Unknown
• Color of vinyl: black
• Number of discs: 1
• Links: [ Wikipedia | Discogs | Band Website | Complete album on Youtube ]

“…. mashed potatoes can be your friend!”

I finally get to an artist in my collection that I always enjoy listening to.  That’s Weird Al Yankovic. I’ve bought all of his albums from his first one in 1983 going forward.  How does one go about describing Weird Al?  It’s really kind of hard.  This was his third album, directly following “In 3D” which of course is where “Eat It” comes from.  I had already bought his first two albums, so I wasn’t going to NOT buy the third.  Was already at “automatic purchase” level.  The only question with a Weird Al album are “what are the parodies” and “how good are the originals”?   This album is a bit of a mix of both.  There’s some absolute glory here, and some ones that I feel are beneath his usual level of comedy on his albums.

This particular piece of vinyl I bought new back in the day.  While I don’t remember exactly WHEN, it probably was right away, as I was very much looking forward to this album when it came out.  I don’t recall it for sure, but the vinyl I’m playing in 2024 is definitely the original – another rescued from my mom’s basement in 2023.

Like a Surgeon – Al does Madonna’s “Like a Virgin”.  By Al’s own admission, this one is one that wasn’t Al’s idea – apparently Madonna got word back to Al about doing this exact parody, which he did.  Was the lead single and video.  The video is also a big time parody of Madonna’s video.  Has Al doing all the writhing dancing, and the lion in the video.  Funny stuff.

Dare to be Stupid – This one is glorious.  A style parody of Devo, it’s well, needs to be listened to to be experienced.  It’s a listing of all kinds of random stuff that you can do to be “stupid”.  By that description alone, I fully admit it sounds well, bad.  But it isn’t.  It’s glorious. Mark Mothersbaugh from Devo called it the most perfect thing he’d ever heard.  Watch the video which is below on my page.  What I really love is that when Al does this live, he and the band get dressed up in the yellow Devo outfits from the video and do the song live.  It’s really fucking awesome live as the entire audience is into it.  Sings everything. Mark Mothersbaugh is correct – it’s a three and a half minute piece of mental randomness that works absolutely perfectly.  I’d also like to add this song is one of those that when I hear it, I usually have to listen to it like 3 or 4 times.

I Want a New Duck – Not one of Al’s best parodies.  Is a parody of Huey Lewis’ “I Want a new Drug”.  It terms of how they replicate the music, it’s spot on.  But then Al’s band is awesome.  I just don’t think this was his best choice for a parody.

One More Minute – This is listed on Wikipedia as a style parody of Elvis Presley, I’d never heard that one before.  This was just a weird doo-wop song where Al talks about all the things he’d rather do than spend a minute with an unnamed person.  It’s an increasingly intense list of things (100,00 paper cuts on my face, and “ripping out my own intestines with a fork”).  It does have one of his more “blue” lines of lyrics – “I’m stranded in the gas station of love and I have to use the self service pump”.  There was a video produced for this one.  Given the visuals in the lyrics, I was a little surprised it wasn’t expounded on in the video.

Yoda – Al does a Star Wars parody of the old Kinks song “Lola”.  It’s a great parody which respects the original song with giving it a new meaning.  It’s basically a Star Wars joke about Yoda.  When I saw Al in 2016, he brought out a bunch of people dressed as Stormtoopers to play the song.  Was funny as hell.

George of the Jungle – One of Al’s straight up covers, not a parody of anything.  He basically re-records the theme song for the old TV cartoon of the same name.  It’s just silly.  But then most of Al’s stuff is, I suppose.

Slime Creatures From Outer Space – An original.  It’s a song about something that sounds right at home in a 1950’s era sci-fi movie. That’s probably the point here.  It’s OK, just kind of there.  It’s got some sounds in the song that really date it as having come out in 1985.  Sounds like it came from that era of music for sure.

Girls Just Want to Have Lunch – Another one of his weaker parodies, IMO.  This hits Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want To have Fun” which was a monster hit at the time.  But even back then I thought this was a lesser parody.  Even Al’s singing on the track is grating, something that I never have a problem with.

This Is the Life – This is probably one of my favorite tracks on this album.  It’s the theme song from a movie at the time called Johnny Dangerously starring Michael Keaton & Joe Piscopo.  It came and went, and most people today don’t have a memory of it, but my brother and I adored it.  Al’s song fits the style of the movie well, which was an old 1920’s gangster movie parody itself.  This was a good marriage. Shame that most people don’t know the song or the movie.  Funny stuff here.

Cable TV – An original song that Wikipedia calls a “style parody of Hercules by Elton John.  That reference is lost on me, as I don’t know that one.  It’s the earliest track in one of AL’s ongoing song subjects.  They’re usually about food or TV.  This one’s TV.  It’s a good track.  I actually like the music, since I don’t know the source, it works for me on a different level – it is in my head as a full Al original.

Hooked on Polkas – And here we have the obligatory polka medley.  There’s not much to say about these beyond they’re funny as hell.  The list of songs he has in here are:  “State of Shock” by Mick Jagger & The Jacksons, “Sharp Dressed Man” by ZZ Top, “What’s Love Got to Do with It” by Tina Turner, “Method Of Modern Love” by Hall & Oates, “Owner Of a Lonely Heart” by Yes, “We’re Not Gonna Take It” by Twisted Sister, “99 Luftballoons” by Nena, “Footloose” by Kenny Loggins, “The Reflex” by Duran Duran, “Metal Health” by Quiet Riot, “Relax” by Frankie Goes to Hollywood.  Always love these.  Great stuff.  I’ll also throw this one out for my wife.  The parody finishes with Frankie’s “Relax”.  I personally cannot stand that song – it legit is fingernails on a chalkboard.  HOWEVER – in this circumstance, I enjoy it when Al does it in a Polka medley, and leads directly into the tradition polka parody ending, and it’s musically perfect – the merge between the two.  I love that part the most actually.  There you go dear – the most positive thing I’ll ever say about that song.  :)

One amusing thing about the vinyl – the sleeve has all the lyrics for the various songs on there.  EXCEPT Hooked on Polkas.  All it say there is “You know the words”.   A final chuckle.

How do I sum this up?  It’s what I said at the start.  Some of this is glorious, and some of it isn’t the greatest.  Overall, it had enough funny on it that I consider the album decent.  Just not his best.   Still, if you like Weird Al it’s worth checking out despite a few minor hiccups here.

He’s a VERY visual artist – make sure and check out the embedded music videos below.