Skip to content

zwolanerd

“I guess I just like liking things”

October 11, 2013 Weird Al By The Numbers

Weird Al Week

 

While I was doing my track rankings of Weird Al’s albums, I would frequently say “This is another food song” or “Another TV song here.” It got me wondering about how many of each of these things there were, so I decided to go through his 13 released studio albums (this includes “UHF” which is considered a soundtrack, but not “Peter and the Wolf”) and count up some things. This chart does not include any “digital only” tracks.

For the purposes of this chart, here are some notes on the types:

  • Parody – A direct parody of a song. “Beat It” becomes “Eat It” and has the same “sound” as the original. You can (and often will!) sing the parody lyrics along with the original and it will work perfectly
  • Original – A completely new song. This also includes “style parodies,” as they can’t be sung to a specific song even if they sound like songs from a particular group.
  • Polka – Any of his polka medleys, but also includes “Bohemian Polka.”
  • TV – Any song that is about a TV show, TV shows, or is a theme song to a TV show
  • Food – Any song that is primarily about food. The asterisk included in this column is for the song “Fat,” as it isn’t just about food, but food is featured prominently and is assumed to be the reason the singer is Fat.
  • Movie – Any song that puts the plot of a movie into song form, or condenses major plot points into song form.
  • Total Songs – Does not include the skits from UHF, nor does it include the 6-second “Bite Me” album ender from Polka Party!.

 

Parody Original Polka TV Food Movie Total Songs
Alpocalypse 5 6 1 12
Straight Outta Lynwood 5 6 1 12
Poodle Hat 5 6 1 1 1 12
Running with Scissors 5 6 1 1 1 1 12
Bad Hair Day 5 6 1 1 1 12
Alapalooza 4 7 1 3 2 1 12
Off the Deep End 5 5 1 1 2 11
Even Worse 5 6 2* 11
UHF 4 6 1 3 1 10
Polka Party! 4 5 1 1 1 10
Dare to Be Stupid 4 5 1 2 1 1 11
“Weird Al” Yankovic in 3-D 5 5 1 2 2 1 11
“Weird Al” Yankovic 5 7 1 2 12
TOTALS: 61 76 11 16 14* 6 148

 

Most interesting statistic to me: despite being known as “that parody guy,” Weird Al’s originals outnumber his direct parodies. Though when you add in the style parodies, I guess it turns out a bit differently. But even on his very first album, he had more originals than direct parodies.

Tags:

Written by: