Clearly we weren’t the only ones that had American Psycho in mind when it came to the announcement that Huey Lewis & The News would be celebrating the 30th anniversary of their breakthrough album Sports with a special expanded re-release
Yesterday the folks over at Funny Or Die decided to reinterpret that pivotal scene by recasting it with Huey himself and Weird Al Yanokvic – whose 1983 album Dare to Be Stupid
If you’re a guy in his mid-30s, whether you’d like to admit it or not, you likely owned at least one “Weird Al” Yankovic album and still may have a soft-spot for his brand of oddball accordion-drenched parody songs. Since releasing his self-titled debut
While Yanokvic has consistently put out albums over the last 30 years, the rise of nerd culture has given him new cache amongst people that grew up on his music, with the folks at Superfly recently nabbing him to host their Bonnaroo lineup announcement. Weird Al, who released Weird Al: The Book
If you’re not into a night of song parodies with Mr. Yankovic, then maybe you’ll be interested in hitting one of these recently announced tours…
Earlier today Weird Al Yankovic hosted the Bonnaroo Lineup Announcement Megathon in which the lineup for this year’s Bonnaroo fest was revealed. There were plenty of complaints about the format, but for the hour when Yankovic and his guests were announcing the ‘Roo acts, it seemed Bonnaroo was all our readers were talking about on Twitter and Facebook.
Bonnaroo performers and HT faves Portugal. The Man were tasked with providing the musical entertainment and we thought they delivered a fine version of perhaps their most well-known tune – So American. In true Bonnaroo spirit, Weird Al joined them to add some rockin’ accordion. Take a look…
Later, Portugal. The Man backed Yankovic on Canadian Idiot…
Since its humble beginnings in 2002, Bonnaroo organizers have found all sorts of ways to announce the festival’s lineup. This year, they have enlisted Weird Al Yankovic to host a one-hour event on YouTube in which he’ll reveal the lineup.
Organizers haven’t let us know exactly when this one-hour event will take place, but they have announced that in addition to the lineup reveal, the broadcast will also feature classic Bonnaroo performances, live in-studio appearances and performances, surprises and giveaways. This should be interesting. We’ll let you know when we find any additional information.
This rock epic was originally released in 1975 on the Queen Album A Night At The Opera. According to allmusic.com, the album was the most expensive rock record ever made at the time. They also have this to say…
The first single from the record, “Bohemian Rhapsody,” became Queen’s signature song, and with its bombastic, mock-operatic structure punctuated by heavy metal riffing, it encapsulates their music. It also is the symbol for their musical excesses — the song took three weeks to record, and there were so many vocal overdubs on the record that it was possible see through the tape at certain points. To support “Bohemian Rhapsody,” Queen shot one of the first conceptual music videos, and the gamble paid off as the single spent nine weeks at number one in the England, breaking the record for the longest run at number one.
The Contestants:
California Guitar Trio: Leading off this week is our only instrumental rendition. Bohemian Rhapsody is a very popular cover and there were many other instrumental versions out there, but of the few I listened to – this one is the best. Source: Echoes
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Some video of California Guitar Trio:
READ ON for the scoop on the rest of this week’s contestants…
Once again, Neil Young has announced a delay in the release of his Chinese Democracy-esque Archives project. This marks the third delay for 8-CD/2-DVD package. Bad News Beat tells us the delay stems from production issues not economic or blue-ray problems. Now, Neil Young Archives Vol. 1 is due in January or February, but we’ll believe it when we see it.
Here are some links you can both see and believe…
On Monday we told you about the latest Frank Zappa archival release, Joe’s Menage. It seems most Zappa fans weren’t happy with the release and took to the Zappa.com message boards to share their disdain. Gail Zappa responded to the haters with a bizarre tirade. We’re not the biggest Gail fans, but Joe’s Menage looks like a great release to us.
Today, we’re introducing another new sporadic feature around here called Hidden Track: At The Barbecue. This is a chance to get a little loose with the Dead Guy Ales, suck down a variety of tube steaks, and shoot the shit with the gang.
Basically, this is an opportunity for the various HT contributors to talk about the germane on goings in the music world or just chat about who likes what.
So, for this first barbecue, we thought we’d kick it off with a little icebreaker: What was your very first favorite song?
Big Papi: For somebody who grew up in the ’80s, a very first favorite song can easily be Eye of the Tiger or Jump. However, the choices are broad, so favorite song needs to be expanded to the first song that you memorized all the lyrics to, which in my case would be The Beastie Boys’ Paul Revere. Perhaps nothing rolled off the tongue of a pre-puberty fifth grader better than repeating the lines:
The sheriff’s after me for what I did to his daughter
I did it like this, I did it like that I did it with a wiffleball bat
So I’m on the run the cop’s got my gun
And right about now it’s time to have some fun
The King Adrock that is my name
And I know the fly spot where they got the champagne.
Read on to see what your favorite HT’ers got down to as young ‘ens…
For this week’s edition of The B List, we turned to a longtime friend of Hidden Track, the man that coined our tagline “My Band Can Beat Up Your Band.” But in addition to his sloganeering prowess, our man Ginz has an eclectic taste in music, and today he shares one of those tastes with us. Take it away Ginz…
Most people know Weird Al Yankovic as the guy that parodied “Beat It” back in the ’80s. But Weird is much, much more than that: He is an artist who just completed his 13th studio album and is about to embark on a 40-plus city U.S. tour. Yes, Al’s claim to fame is his parodies — you know you hit it big when Al parodies you, even Coolio — but his real genius comes out in his original songs.
Weird will often write in a certain genre for his originals. Sometimes it may be country, polka, punk or even in the “style of an artist” to get the feel, so much so, that you may swear you have heard that song before. So without further ado, I present the Top 10 Original Weird Al songs. Enjoy these videos I unearthed, from whatever the devil that place is called that host all the videos that you put up.
Read on for Ginz’s B List of the 10 best Weird Al originals…
