Music Video: “Weird Al” Yankovic – “First World Problems”

There have already been some amazing videos released for the new “Weird Al” Yankovic album Mandatory Fun, but this one might actually be my favorite of the bunch.

“First World Problems” is an Al original, done in the style of The Pixies, and was an instant standout track on the album when I first listened to it.  The great thing about the video is that Weird Al has handed over the directing duties on this one to Liam Lynch (Al generally directs all of his own music videos) and it’s sometimes good to see someone else’s vision of a song or video. I’ve also been impressed with the fact that (with the exception of “Word Crimes”) the rest of these videos have all been live-action, instead of done in animation.  When did they find the time to make all of these?

Music Video: “Weird Al” Yankovic – “Sports Song”

After four previous days of parody videos from the new Weird Al release Mandatory Fun, today sees the first original song released from the album.

“Sports Song” is probably just what you’d expect it to be. Performed in the style of a college marching band, this song says what everybody is usually thinking anyway: “Our team is great, and your team sucks!”  We can only hope that some college decides to actually start playing/performing this at their games!

Playlist: The Best Of Sia

Just this past week, Sia’s latest album 1000 Forms Of Fear debuted at the top of the Billboard charts. As a longtime fan, it is definitely well-deserved, and I’m glad to see other people discovering what I’ve known for over a decade.

Sia was originally introduced to American audiences as the main voice of the band Zero 7.  She provides lead vocals on several of their tracks, spanning multiple albums.  Her first solo CD was released in 2000, but it wasn’t until her song “Breathe Me” was included in the series finale of HBO’s Six Feet Under, that people really started to take notice.

I didn’t even realize that she had been the vocalist for Zero 7 when I started getting into her solo work in 2008.  That was the year she released her fourth studio album Some People Have Real Problems. In 2010 she released another album, We Are Born, but it wasn’t until 2011 that she really hit the mainstream, writing and providing vocals for the David Guetta track, “Titanium” which became an instant hit.

If you’ve only been a fan since then, you might not be familiar with her older material, so I put together this playlist of what I consider the 15 most essential Sia tracks (from 2010 and earlier), solo songs and a few from Zero 7 as well.  Give it a listen and you’ll discover that Sia has one of the most amazing voices in music today!

Music Video: “Weird Al” Yankovic – “Handy”

Today marks the mid-way point of Weird Al’s eight music video releases from his latest (and possibly final) album, Mandatory Fun: four videos down, and four more to go.  Like the three that came before, today’s parody video debuts on yet another content provider, Yahoo! Screen (the future home of Community).

“Handy” is a parody of Iggy Azalea’s chart-topping “Fancy” and the video features one of my favorite comedians, Eddie Pepitone (who tweeted about his involvement in the music video shoot last week).  With only one parody left to go without a music video (“Inactive”, parody of Imagine Dragons), it should be interesting to see what the remaining four videos will be.

Music Video: “Weird Al” Yankovic – “Foil”

What is today?  It’s Wednesday.  Oh, and it’s also day three of “Weird Al” Yankovic’s #8videos8days music video promotion. Partnering with CollegeHumor.com,  he has delivered another surprisingly strong video from the new album Mandatory Fun.

There is a lot to like about this one, a parody of “Royals” by Lorde: the unexpected turn mid-way through, the cameos from Patton Oswalt, Tom Lennon, and Ben Garant, AND really,  how can you hate a song about aluminum foil? Check out the video below, and click here for continuing coverage of Al’s #8videos8days promotion.

Music Video: “Weird Al” Yankovic – “Word Crimes”

Another day, another music video. Day two of Weird Al’s #8videos8days promotion brought us “Word Crimes”, a parody of “Blurred Lines” by Robin Thicke, and the second video from the new album Mandatory Fun.

This was also my favorite of the parodies when I first listened to the new album!

I know I’ve been guilty of committing some of these word crimes myself, even on this blog, so feel free to throw the book at me!

Check out the video below…

Music Video: Jenny Lewis – “Just One Of The Guys”

I’m not going to lie.  Jenny Lewis is always amazing.  As far as I’m concerned, there isn’t a better female vocalist out there right now (with the possible exception of Sia, our current featured artist of the week).

It will be a couple more weeks before Jenny gets her chance to be our featured artist, but in the meantime, she’s debuted the music video for her first single “Just One Of The Guys” (already one of my favorite songs of 2014). The song features backing vocals by Beck, who also produced the track.

Check out Jenny, alongside some of her famous friends in the video below…

The Weekly Dose 07-15-14 (featuring Sia)

Featured Artist Of The Week: Sia

I feel like I’ve written a lot about Sia on the blog over the last few years, but she really is one of my favorite artists who is finally getting the attention she deserves.  I first became aware of Sia in the early 2000’s, when she was featured on the song “Destiny” by Zero 7.  The thing is, I didn’t really know it was her until about 7 or 8 years later when she released her live album Lady Croissant which featured that song alongside another Zero 7 track and live performances from her solo albums up until that point (including “Breathe Me” which has been included in many commercials, as well as featuring prominently in the Six Feet Under series finale).

She recently gained attention in the mainstream for her song “Titanium” which was produced by David Guetta.  She’s also written songs for many popular artists (including Rihanna, Madonna, and Beyonce to name a few), and earlier this month she released her fifth studio album, 1000 Forms Of Fear.  Lately, Sia has been hiding her face in most of her live television performances, due to a combination of stage fright and a reluctance to be in the public eye.  But I’ve seen her in concert three times (so far), and I hope she will someday return to touring and live concert performances, as she really does have one of the best voices out there right now.

Music Video: “Weird Al” Yankovic – “Tacky”

In a brilliant promotional move for the new Weird Al album, Mandatory Fun, 8 music videos have been filmed (or some possibly animated, if they are anything like the videos that accompanied the last two albums) and they will be debuting one video a day, for eight days in a row.

Not only is this a great idea in terms of getting the videos out there, but this is also the first time where no official single for the album has been decided in advance.  By releasing 8 separate videos, and letting the public decide which ones are going to be the most popular, you could essentially see several of these songs being purchased individually on iTunes, and multiple songs could make their way into the national top 40.  It’s an interesting idea, at the very least.

Today, the first music video made its debut for the song “Tacky”, a cameo-filled parody of Pharrell Williams “Happy”.  I won’t spoil all the celebrity cameos here. You’ll have to watch the video for yourself.  The video premiered over at the Nerdist network.  Since it doesn’t seem to want to embed on wordpress, you can watch the video over there. Enjoy!

Also, click here to check out the rest of Al’s #8videos8days videos…

What do you think of the song, and promotional strategy for the new album? Let me know in the comments, on Twitter, or on our Facebook page.  Also, in case you missed it, check out the playlist I put together with 27 Essential “Weird Al” Original Songs.

 

Playlist: “Weird Al” Yankovic – 27 Essential Originals

This week, “Weird Al” Yankovic releases his 14th studio album, Mandatory Fun, and to celebrate, I’ve compiled a playlist of what I consider to be the 27 most essential Weird Al “original” songs.  Those who aren’t too familiar with Al’s work may not know that every album includes at least 5 or 6 original tracks.

Now, obviously Al is mostly known for his parodies.  His biggest hits include songs like “Eat It” or “White and Nerdy” but even some of the originals have been released as singles over the years (“UHF”, “This Is The Life”, and “Dare To Be Stupid” instantly come to mind). Then, you also have the songs that are best described as “style parodies”.  They are technically original, because they don’t parody a specific song, but they are usually performed in the style of a popular artist.

The 27 songs I chose for this playlist are listed in chronological order, from 1983’s self titled “Weird Al” Yankovic to his last release, 2011’s Alpocalypse.