‘Weird Al’ Yankovic / The Essential Weird Al Yankovic

‘Weird Al’ Yankovic
The Essential Weird Al Yankovic
(Legacy Recordings)

Known chiefly for his Teen Spirit aping hit 'Smells Like Nirvana', Weird Al may be nothing more than a curio over here but in the US he’s been a cult phenomenon for nigh on 30 years. This compilation is pretty exhaustive: 38 inventively hilarious parodies of classic pop culture later and you feel like you’re living in some sort of alternative universe where The Onion is an actual news network and Weird Al is Elvis, Michael Jackson and Brian Wilson all rolled into one.
If there’s one thing to take from this collection, it’s that no-one is safe. Yankovic takes off everyone from The Kinks ('Lola' becomes 'Yoda' - the rest is self explanatory) to Madonna and stays admirably on his game as the years roll by. His mickey take of Puff Daddy and the Family, 'It’s All About The Pentiums’ is bettered only by Coolio send up 'Amish Paradise'. Why did I not know these songs existed before now?!
True, the joke wears thin around Canadian Idiot, probably Green Day’s fave Weird Al effort, but you can’t take it away from Al and his merry pranksters, they’ve got the chops to raise these songs above the usual unsolicited YouTube parody fare.