Dare to Be Weird

By Gordon Hopkins As a teenager in the 80’s, I came of age during the MTV generation. Evidence in the form of video clips online, like broken pieces of a ceramic pot discovered by archeologists in the underground ruins of a long dead-and-buried city, provide glimpses of a world as different and inexplicable as ancient Samaria or Babylonia. Like those ancient metropolises, you can’t really understand it unless you lived it and, when the last of us that did are gone, all archeologists will have to go by to understand of that bizarre, neon world are video clips of people with big hair and shoulder pads.With the advent of cable television, and opportunity for more than just the “big three” television networks, wannabe TV moguls scrambled to come up with a gimmick to make their network stand out.And, thus, MTV was born.The concept of filmed accompaniment to songs was hardly a new concept but MTV basically followed the radio model, playing one after another.Music videos are an ephemeral artifact. Like the songs themselves, 90 percent of the videos and the artists that produced them are forgotten. Of the rest, they exist as if suspended in amber. Madonna, for example, is widely credited as one of, if not the, most successful MTV artist whose career has continued long beyond the demise of the original MTV. But the truth of the matter is, to even her most fervent fans, she’s still the “Like a Virgin” Madonna. Yeah, she’s done lots of stuff since and is famous for reinventing herself every 20 minutes but she still carries the MTV stigma and that is what her fans see.Bottom line: nobody loves Madonna who wasn’t first exposed to her via MTV. The same can be said for most musicians who first came to prominence on MTV.To my mind, there is only one MTV-era musician who has truly transcended his origin: “Weird” Al Yankovic. He is the only one I can think of who has fans that know nothing of his MTV days.I am talking about this, of course, because today sees the release of “Weird: The Al Yankovic Story.” Up until recently, I had been under the impression this was a straight biopic. In fact, it appears to be a parody of all those “Behind the Music” docudramas.I won’t bother getting into who Weird Al is or how he made a career out of parodying the songs of other hit musicians, thereby becoming bigger than 90 percent of those musicians (much to their chagrin, I image). I only wish to point out that some of his song parodies are so good, so artistic, that they can and are enjoyed by fans with no knowledge of the originals. As an old grouch, I have learned to detest almost all music created after 1989, so nearly every Weird Al tune I’ve listened to is a parody of a song I’ve never even heard of, let alone heard.I was going to provide a partial list of Weird Al songs that are better than their inspiration, like ‘White and Nerdy’ (From Chamillionaire’s “Ridin’ Dirty. It is worth noting, Chamillionaire praised Weird Al’s rapping).I started the list but abandoned it when I realized it would take up more column inches that I have available on the page.I will note that there is a phenomenon called the “Yankovic Bump.” When Weird Al does a parody of a song, the original single gets a boost and ends up selling millions more. This may explain why so few singers actually complain when Weird Al makes fun of them.

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