May 20, 2003 - Poodle Hat

It's my fifth and final release on this day, and a long four years since "Running With Scissors", Weird Al Yankovic released his eleventh album "Poodle Hat" on May 20, 2003. Like most Weird Al albums this one is roughly half straight parodies of popular songs, half style parodies, one Polka medley, and even one original song! I loved Al's last album and this one makes fun of all kinds of songs that were popular in my youth. Let's dive in!

The album begins with ir's kead single "Couch Potato", which is a parody of the Uber popular song "Lose Yourself" by Eminem. As always, Al does a pretty good job of matching the music to be like the original, but Al's lyrics are all about being glued to your couch and watching TV all day long. The delivery is near perfect, hitting all the same notes as the original, but of course it's hilarious to listen to Al rap about all the different networks and shows that television has to offer. As usual, you have to listen to all of the lyrics to fully appreciate how well done this parody is, nice job Al! Up next is an original song titled "Hardware Store" and it starts with a bunch of noises of power tools made into a beat (kind of "Money"-esque). Jim West plays a simple but pretty catchy guitar riff and as you'd expect it's the lyrics that make the song. Al sings really quickly on this song, and it's all about how excited he is for the new hardware store to open and all the things he's going to buy. It doesn't sound entertaining or even funny, but of course there's some pretty hilarious lines throughout and Al's super speedy delivery is quite impressive, especially in the part before the final chorus where it seems like he's spitting out 10-15 words a second! All about hardware, and all delivered perfectly, I found myself really enjoying this weird song! A pretty awesome original song! Track 3 is "Trash Day", a parody of another massively popular song, "Hot in Herre" by Nelly. The music is nothing special, but as usual it's near perfect to the original and Al improves upon this song (in my opinion) by singing about how his place is a pigsty and smells horrendous. The lyrics are intentionally gross and over the top and while unfortunately it's just the pure quality of the song that is not very good. Al does a solid parody that is decently funny, but you just can't make this sound good sadly. The next track Isa style parody of the Bo Diddley beat and it's called "Party At The Leper Colony". I couldn't tell you what a Bo Diddley beat is, but I guess it sounds like this, which is a pretty simple but decently catchy drum beat leading the way. The guitar and keyboards follow suit for a very old time-y feel to things and Al 's lyrics on this one are all hilarious puns about lepers. "Let's give 'em a hand". "It'll cost you an arm and a leg". The list goes on and some of them are pretty funny. There's a pretty solid louder, instrumental part with some rockin' trumpet that sounds very danceable and this is not some bad music at all even though the verse is super simple. As usual it's the funny lyrics that are the highlight though, another solid tune. Track 5 is the Polka medley (one on every album) and it's of course led by Al playing some pretty cool accordion! It's got a whole bunch of different Polka parts and as per the norm they aren't parodies, they are snippets of actual covers of all kinds of popular rock/metal songs of the early 2000s, and it's aptly named "Angry White Boy Polka". He touches on several songs in my library, including opening with "Last Resort" by Papa Roach. He also rips on lots of other popular artists I don't have like Limp Bizkit and Kid Rock and hearing all these nu-metal songs played in a Polka style is pretty damn entertaining! My favourites are definitely "Chop Suey!" by System Of A Down, which sounds great in Polka by the way, and "Down With the Sickness" by Disturbed which both really nail the theme. Somehow Al mixes Polka and metal nicely! Up next is a style parody of Beck called "Wanna B Ur Lovr" and it sounds like a smooth jazz tune with some decent bass in the background by Steve Jay and lots of interesting keyboard effects overtop. Al's lyrics are all terrible pick-up lines, some of which are of course pretty hilarious. It's an over six minute song as well so there's A LOT of them too! The music is pretty repetitive by the end, but the funny pick-up lines are fresh and great right until the end. Track 7 is "A Complicated Song", a parody of Avril Lavigne's mega-hit "Complicated", and as usual they absolutely nail the music to the point where it could be the original. Each verse and chorus is about it's Own thing, with the first being about how Al is constipated. The second (and my favourite) verse is about discovering he and is girlfriend are both related, it's quite hilarious! The final one is about being decapitated on a roller coaster and this whole song is just one nonsensical, hilarious parody that, in my humble opinion, is way better than the original! The next track is "Why Does This Always Happen To Me?" and the person it's a style parody of, Ben Folds, is actually the one playing the piano on this song! It's some upbeat and solid piano that carries things nicely and this song is about how terrible things are inconveniencing him. He delivers them hilariously of course, about an earthquake that killed thousands ruining his taping on TV, and how a co-worker Dying in a car crash means he'll never get back the money he owed him. It's pretty hilarious to have such dark subject matter overtop such cheery piano and I really like this one, it's catchy and quite funny! Folds even delivers a cool piano solo midway through! Track 9 is "Ode To A Superhero" which is actually a cover of Billy Joel's "Piano Man" for the music, but the lyrics are completely Al's, and they're actually about the hit movie Spiderman with Toby Maguire oddly enough. As always the music part is done really well to the original, which means some harmonica by Al and some pretty solid piano. Al just recounts the plot of the movie, but of course puts a funny spin on things and somehow makes this work really nicely! Al plays some solid accordion as well and this is an interesting parody for sure. Up next is "Bob", a style parody of Bob Dylan, but all the lyrics on this song are palindromes, which makes Bob a pretty fitting song title. A lot of them are nonsensical, but some of them are pretty crazy; who knew "Lonely Tylenol" and "A Toyota's a Toyota" were palindromes! Some are quite long as well! The music is nothing special, but that's certainly an interesting idea for a song. Track 11 is the final parody, this one of the Uber famous Backstreet Boys song "I Want It That Way", Al's version is all about "eBay". Yes all the lyrics are about all the weird stuff that someone can buy on eBay, and of course Al delivers the lines in a nice funny way and makes things fit the melody perfectly. The music is not my thing obviously, but as always it's right on to the original. You really have to listen to all the hilarious lyrics but when Al goes super high to sing "I'm highest bidder!" you can't help but laugh. It's another pretty spot-on parody. The last song on the album is a style parody of Frank Zappa and it's called "Genius In France". The music on this one is pretty cool, it's pretty jazzy throughout the whole nine minutes(!), but there's all kinds of different parts that I couldn't possibly properly describe them all and mixed in is all kinds of interesting guitar, keyboards and even drums! Al's lyrics on this one are all about how nobody likes him and thinks he's weird in America, but in France he is beloved. With a nine minute song there are a lot of verses, and it's a decently catchy chorus thankfully since it does come up a fair bit. West delivers a pretty epic guitar solo at one point, and one of my favourite lines by Al is "If I were any dumber, they'd have to water me twice a week". It's nowhere near as good as last album's closer "Albuquerque", but it's a solid way to finish things off still, even if all the metaphors get a little old by the end.

That is the end of "Poodle Hat" and I thought it was a pretty good Weird Al album. A lot of the songs don't have the best music, but Al's lyrics are hilarious throughout the whole album. I don't think it's as good as his last album "Running With Scissors", but this is still a pretty solid album through and through. I'm sure Weird Al will be showing up again!