The Essential Weird Al Yankovic

Editors’ Notes Three-time GRAMMY-winning entertainer, “Weird Al” Yankovic has spent 30 years poking fun at and inventing new humorous angles for pop songs and cultural marks. Beginning with basic song parodies such as “Another One Rides the Bus,” after Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust,” and “Eat It” to Michael Jackson’s “Beat It,” Yankovic managed to up the ante with crazy conceptual pieces like “The Biggest Ball of Twine In Minnesota.” “Smells Like Nirvana” skewered the entire marketing of the “grunge” movement, while obviously riffing off of “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” “White & Nerdy” turns the joke back onto “Weird Al” himself. “Amish Paradise” introduced a Pennsylvania Dutch gangsta-rapper. “The Night Santa Went Crazy” turns the jolly one into a serial killer. Yankovic has created an alternate world where no one is safe or sane. His love for pop music can be heard in the note-perfect renditions that mimic the world of hip-hop, heavy metal, alternative rock and all-star charity power ballads (“Don’t Download This Song”).