"Weird Al" Yankovic - Mandatory Fun - 2014 Parody Rock Pop Hip Hop Polka - Sealed LP

Weird Al Yankovic - Mandatory Fun

Style: Parody

Tracklist

A1 Handy
A2 Lame Claim To Fame
A3 Foil
A4 Sports Song
A5 Word Crimes
A6 My Own Eyes
Now That's What I Call Polka!
A7a Too Fat Polka
A7b Wrecking Ball
A7c Pumped Up Kicks
A7d Best Song Ever
A7e Gangnam Style
A7f Call Me Maybe
A7g Scream & Shout
A7h Somebody That I Used To Know
A7i Timber
A7j Sexy And I Know It
A7k Thrift Shop
A7l Get Lucky
A7m Mandatory Polka

B1 Mission Statement
B2 Inactive
B3 First World Problems
B4 Tacky
B5 Jackson Park Express

Credits

Art Direction – Meghan Foley
Bass – Steve Jay (tracks: A2, A6 to B5)
Drum Programming – Jon "Bermuda" Schwartz (tracks: A1, A3, A5, B2, B4)
Drums – Jon "Bermuda" Schwartz (tracks: A2, A4, A6 to B1, B3, B5)
Engineer – Brian Warwick, Dave Way (tracks: A2, A4, A6, B1, B3, B5), Rafael Serrano
Guitar – Jim "Kimo" West (tracks: A2, A6, B1 to B3, B5)
Illustration – Alexander Lansang
Illustration [Pg 2] – Ria Del Rosario
Keyboards – Jim "Kimo" West (tracks: A1, A3, B2, B4)
Lead Vocals, Backing Vocals [Background Vocals] – "Weird Al" Yankovic
Lyrics By [New] – Al Yankovic (tracks: A1, A3, A5, B2, B4)
Management – Jay Levey
Mastered By – Bernie Grundman
Mixed By – Dave Way
Other [Hair & Make-up] – Sean James
Other [Wardrobe] – Lawren Sample
Percussion – Jon "Bermuda" Schwartz (tracks: A2, A7, B1, B5)
Photography By – Robert Trachtenberg
Producer – Al Yankovic
Written-By – Al Yankovic (tracks: A2, A4, A6, A7m, B1, B3, B5)

Notes

Mixed at Way Station
Tracks 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 & 12 recorded at Way Station and GoDaveyGo Studio
Tracks 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 & 11 recorded at Bedrock L.A.
Amanada Palmer's vocals recorded at Mad Oak Studios
Mastered at Bernie Grundman Mastering, Hollywood

Track 1 parody of "Fancy" by Iggy Azalea
Track 3 parody of "Royals" by Lorde
Track 5 parody of "Blurred Lines" by Robin Thicke
Track 7 polka medley featuring:
"Too Fat Polka" by Arthur Godfrey
"Wrecking Ball" by Miley Cyrus
"Pumped Up Kicks" by Foster The People
"Best Song Ever" by One Direction
"Gangnam Style" by PSY
"Call Me Maybe" by Carly Rae Jepsen
"Scream & Shout" by will.i.am & Britney Spears
"Somebody That I Used To Know" by Gotye
"Timber" by Pitbull featuring Ke$ha
"Sexy And I Know It" by LMFAO
"Thrift Shop" by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
"Get Lucky" by Daft Punk
Track 9 parody of "Radioactive" by Imagine Dragons
Track 11 parody of "Happy" by Pharrell Williams

''While some may feel that some of the parodies miss an opportunity to subvert the original with social commentary, that's just not Weird Al's schtick. The good-natured lampooning is back and the tunes are still catchy and clever. Don't miss the polka medley that includes his riff on Macklemore's "Thrift Shop!"

Weird Al has always been a master of parody music, but this album tops them all. Every song on this album will bring a smile to your face. Also, considering I never really liked the original versions of some songs he parodys, Weird Al makes them way more tolerable.

Mandatory Fun opens with “Handy”, his absolutely ace riffing on Iggy Azalea’s “Fancy”, where he nails Azalea’s every vocal nuance and colloquialism (“Now let me glue dat glue dat / And screw dat screw dat / Any random chore you got / I can do dat do dat”) even as he retreads on still-brilliant material he covered with his 1992 Milli Vanilli lambasting “The Plumbing Song” from Off the Deep End.


“Word Crimes”, his grammatically-correct Robin Thicke parody, has garnered a lot of buzz for how it takes what is already a very controversial song and makes it about something as mundane as dangling participles and oxford commas. Heck, while some have called his Imagine Dragons’ parody obvious (“Radioactive” becomes “really inactive”), it’s still a hell of a lot of fun, using the deep breath intake during the first verse as great time to have an inhaler sound effect. As always, Yankovic is never overly mean with his subjects, but he knows how to adapt a song’s existing iconography to fit his own comedic needs.''