The Rock Hall Can Go “Eat It” and 5 new songs that don’t suck
Weird Al Yankovic just kicked off a 90-city North American tour after selling out Madison Square Garden last year. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has never nominated him. Not once. Something is very wrong here.
The case for Weird Al isn’t a novelty argument. It’s a data argument. He’s one of four artists in history to chart a top 40 hit in each of the last four decades alongside Michael Jackson, Madonna, and U2. He sold 12 million albums. He won five Grammys. In 2014, Mandatory Fun debuted at number one, the first comedy album to top a chart since 1963. The man has been eligible for the Rock Hall since 2004. They’ve had twenty-plus years to figure this out.
What gets overlooked is the craft behind the parody. The genius of Eat It wasn’t the food jokes. It was the frame-for-frame replication of the Beat It video: same costumes, same choreography, same camera angles. Al understood immediately that the music video was a comedic medium, and he used it with more precision than most directors do.
Then there’s the integrity piece. In 1994, the Supreme Court ruled that parody is protected as fair use. Weird Al could have recorded anything without asking permission. He never did. He called every artist, explained the concept, and walked away every time someone said no. Prince said no. He moved on. No argument, no leverage. Just respect.
And half his catalog is original. Dare to Be Stupid was such a precise Devo tribute that Mark Mothersbaugh said it made him angry because Al had nailed their sound better than they sometimes did themselves. That’s not a novelty act. That’s a musician.
The Songs
When the Love is Gone by Des Rocs opens his new album To Hell and Back swinging hard. After a spinal injury that left him partially paralyzed, Des Rocs came back with a live-tracked record that sounds exactly like how that sentence should feel. Big chorus, ripping guitars, zero apology. Kiss-level arena energy from a guy who earned every bit of it.
Black Paint by Ty Segall is two minutes of thick, grungy garage rock with a compositional trick that shouldn’t work but absolutely does. The guitar flips from distorted to clean for about half a measure, then snaps back. The first time it happens you think something broke. By the third time you realize it’s the whole point.
Burning Out by the Linda Lindas leans into exactly what over-produced rock forgets to leave in. There are slight vocal imperfections on the held notes, the natural waver that comes from a real performance. A lot of artists would auto-tune that out. The Linda Lindas left it, and the track is better for it.
Hurracane by DMAs has a sonic fingerprint that’s hard to shake, and it starts with what sounds like a mandolin in the intro. Whether it’s an actual instrument or a pedal effect, it gives the song its identity. The production is crisp, the vocals are layered, and yes, “Hurracane” is misspelled everywhere except the lyrics. Nobody seems to know why.
The New Sensation by the Sankaras is the kind of track that would make you stop whatever you were doing if this band opened for someone you already liked. Front-to-back high energy, the kind that makes a crowd look at each other like, who are these people. Good problem to have.
