Melanie is a favorite of mine as well. I've often wondered if Al had a specific artist in mind when recording that song (I've heard Marshall Crenshaw bandied about).

Yep. One of his more underrated parodies, in my opinion.

According to the Set List interview that Nabin did with Weird Al on this site, Albuquerque was intended as a style parody of bands known for lengthy "hard-driving rock narratives", such as George Thorogood and Mojo Nixon. The most blatant inspiration for the song was a fairly obscure alternative/cowpunk group out of…

If I'm remembering correctly, Weird Al's original songs exclusively became style parodies starting with the Bad Hair Day album. Prior to that, the originals did lean toward specific artist parodies but also contained songs that were simply original material without any particular target of parody in mind.

One of my favorite things about the style parodies of Weird Al is trying to spot the specific songs by the original artist that likely influenced the final product. As I recall, the verses in Velvet Elvis are pure "Walking On The Moon", and the chaotic instrumental bridge is borrowed from Synchronicity II, while the…

So happy to see this Hear This article. Weird Al's style parodies are secretly (except for superfans) his best material. My personal favorite is his early R.E.M. pastiche, Frank's 2000 Inch TV, which nails that jangle-pop sound, especially in the "HEY NOWWW" break near the end.

UGH, that really got to me too. The write-up would've been perfectly fine without adding that little snap at MV.

That seemed like such an unnecessary addition to the write-up.

In my experience, even fans of the Fast & Furious franchise think that entry was garbage.

So…no Watch This entry today?

I'm torn on Film Critic Hulk. He makes good points, but the gimmick seems so…unnecessary and gives me a headache after reading.

Thanks for this link, those answers were refreshingly thoughtful and free of bullshit. I regret brushing off Hawke as a douchebag when I was younger for no real reason besides "he looks like he would be a douchebag".

booo. Martin Short can be funny in the right role.

@avclub-cfe912f5cb3aa572bd1c9ae2a9b82207:disqus You're right, he's more akin to Franklin The Puppet in the end.

He posts under every Hear This article with some variation on "YAWN" or "ZZZZZ" or "This sounds like shit".

To paraphrase Blue Velvet, why do there have to be users like Senor Bagofcrap?

So what are the odds we'll see a Newswire on this new film equivalent to Pitchfork that most of the AV Club veterans will be working on?

of Stone Cold fame?

I received this information from a Wikipedia page which offers a dead link as a citation. So yes, you probably would be.

Would you believe that They Might Be Giants and R.E.M. were both asked to record that theme song before settling with middling power-pop act The Rembrandts?