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"Weird Al" Yankovic - Mandatory Fun, Out July 15th - Just Eat It

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He looks like Russel Brand.

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After making Mandatory Fun available on Amazon, Weird Al's Facebook has reported that it's the number one selling album currently on their site. No picture or description, and the price went up from $11.96 to $16.95.
 
Two recent announcements:
1. Al is releasing the tracklist on July 1st, the day the album goes up for pre-order on iTunes.

2.
A lot of people have been wondering when I’m going to release the lead single for “Mandatory Fun.” Well, here’s the thing… there IS no “lead single” for my new album. I’ll be releasing 12 “singles” all at once on July 15 – so you can decide for YOURSELF which songs are the hits!
By the way, I’ll have 8 – that’s right, 8 – brand new music videos… and I’ll be world-premiering one every single day for eight days straight, starting on July 14!
Get excited!!!
 
Yay ! =D

Wonder if there will be live action videos or "give the song to an animator and let him go crazy" like the last albums
 
Yay ! =D

Wonder if there will be live action videos or "give the song to an animator and let him go crazy" like the last albums

Those don't count to me, even the well thought out ones have nothing on Al's live action videos, so many of which are great.
 
I just hope he doesn't go crazy with the releases like last time. I got worn out on the last album before even hearing it because he released all the biggest songs for free on YouTube.

I liked it before when you had to wait for the release to hear all the songs.

I do plan on ordering both Alpocalypse and Mandatory Fun at the same time just to make sure to have them. CD of course. Gotta have physical copies.
 
I just hope he doesn't go crazy with the releases like last time. I got worn out on the last album before even hearing it because he released all the biggest songs for free on YouTube.

I liked it before when you had to wait for the release to hear all the songs.

Isn't that exactly what he's doing? That quote seems to be saying "I'm not putting out singles, everything is releasing on the same day" AKA there won't be singles, there's just the album.
 
Well, here we go. It looks like the album is live on iTunes New Zealand. You can confirm this yourself by switching your country by clicking the flag in the bottom right corner of iTunes store.

Picture proof: http://i.imgur.com/ay0mq2Q.png

1. Handy (Parody of "Fancy" by Iggy Azalea)
2. Lame Claim To Fame
3. Foil (Parody of "Royals" by Lorde)
4. Sports Song
5. Word Crimes (Parody of "Blurred Lines" by Robin Thicke)
6. My Own Eyes
7. NOW That's What I Call Polka!
8. Mission Statement
9. Inactive (Parody of "Radioactive" by Imagine Dragons)
10. First World Problems
11. Tacky (Parody of "Happy" by Pharrell)
12. Jackson Park Express

Track lengths suggest that Al has cut down all of the originals for his parodies. He has done this historically, and it's usually for the better.

Fancy - 3:20 Handy - 2:56
Royals - 3:10 Foil - 2:22
Blurred Lines - 4:23 Word Crimes - 3:43
Radioactive - 3:07 Inactive - 2:56
Happy - 3:53 Tacky - 2:53 (A whole minute cut out!)

Let the speculation begin. And you know what, I like the name of the polka. :)
 
Those tracks sound good just based on the names. Some really good parody choices there. Plus another epic-length song from him (
Jackson Park Express
at over 9 minutes) makes me very intrigued. I still love Albuquerque.
 
This has been on my radar for a good while. Looking forward to another album from Al.

No style parody info yet ?

Out of 12 tracks, only 5 are parodys ....

State of the music industry in general or just a lack of songs he feels he can parody? His original tracks have been fantastic, so I'm not really complaining.
 
Sad to not see a
Get Lucky
parody on there. And the songs seem really short. No 11 minute epic? I miss those. Or is that last one
"Jackson Park Express"
a long one? I can't check right now on the store.
 
I'm excited. My only concern is that three of the parody tracks are of songs that are pretty crappy songs. I'd never heard them before (yea, I don't listen to a lot of current stuff).

I listened to
"Fancy" by Iggy Azalea, "Royals" by Lorde, "Blurred Lines" by Robin Thicke
and was bored out of my mind. Such dull, uninteresting songs. Hopefully Al can invigorate them with his lyrics.

The other two parody tracks are songs I really like and should be a lot of fun. :)
 
I'm excited. My only concern is that three of the parody tracks are of songs that are pretty crappy songs. I'd never heard them before (yea, I don't listen to a lot of current stuff).

I listened to
"Fancy" by Iggy Azalea, "Royals" by Lorde, "Blurred Lines" by Robin Thicke
and was bored out of my mind. Such dull, uninteresting songs. Hopefully Al can invigorate them with his lyrics.

The other two parody tracks are songs I really like and should be a lot of fun. :)

Party in the CIA is 500 times better than Party in the USA, so I have plenty of faith on most of the parodies except
Blurred Lines because that song is almost talked bad poetry, not a song
...but then again the name of the parody appears to use that in it's advantage
 
he's been in a genre of his own for like 3 decades and makes a ton of money doing it.

if that isn't the definition of clever then what is

Making money is actually not the definition of being clever.

I realize I'm being all "don't like thing I don't like" right now so I apologize. If people enjoy him that's cool.

I just never really understood the love for him.
 
Making money is actually not the definition of being clever.

I realize I'm being all "don't like thing I don't like" right now so I apologize. If people enjoy him that's cool.

I just never really understood the love for him.

Two things for me:
-He's incredibly talented musically. Both as a vocalist and in the way he and his guys deconstruct and reconstruct every song they parody. The breadth of musical styles that they've done pitch perfect imitations of is breathtaking.

-His stuff is just absurd. It really is. I love most of The Lonely Islands stuff, but their stuff is practically sane compared to turning Hot in Here into Trash Day or just conceiving of a song like Hardware Store. Its very purposeful absurdity that takes all of our pop culture and goes "hey, isn't all of this just ridiculous?"
 
I listened to
"Fancy" by Iggy Azalea, "Royals" by Lorde, "Blurred Lines" by Robin Thicke
and was bored out of my mind. Such dull, uninteresting songs. Hopefully Al can invigorate them with his lyrics.
I don't like Royals, and Fancy drives me NUTS so this is a concern for me...

Party in the CIA is 500 times better than Party in the USA, so I have plenty of faith on most of the parodies except
Blurred Lines because that song is almost talked bad poetry, not a song
...but then again the name of the parody appears to use that in it's advantage
...but this is a good point. Party in the CIA is super catchy. Plus, as someone else pointed out, the parody versions of the new songs are shorter than the originals.
 
...but this is a good point. Party in the CIA is super catchy. Plus, as someone else pointed out, the parody versions of the new songs are shorter than the originals.

Exactly. While CIA is a better song, Party in the U.S.A. is at least a catchy song. Those three I mentioned were forgettable and bland. I'm glad to see the parodies will be shortened.
 
Royals, Radioactive and Happy
can be easily turned into awesome songs, SPECIALY
Radioactive and Royals
that have some kind of "epic feel" that can be hilarious if apllied to the right (read : wrong) stuff.


My only worry is
Fancy
... but at least the video has HILARIOUS potential to parody
 
Al can only parody what he's given to work with. But at least he goes the full distance with them.

Also, I actually like Party in the USA. It's strange I know.
 
Catching up on the last one, and I've never heard most of the songs it's parodying, exception being Born this Way... Is it just me, or is Party in the CIA better than Party in the USA? Out of curiosity, has Party in the CIA been used in American Dad? I'd be shocked if it wasn't at least used in that. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised it it were written for that show.
 
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