Bono and "Weird Al" Yankovic

On the great rock and roll spectrum, U2 occupies the far end of one extreme when it comes to pretension and self-seriousness and “Weird Al” Yankovic occupies the other. U2 famously takes itself way too seriously. Al, in sharp contrast, does not take himself seriously at all and that is why he is low-key the actual savior of rock and roll rather than a self-styled pop messiah like Bono. 

For decades now Al has brought a crucial sense of balance to the pop music world. His heroic irreverence serves as a necessary antidote and counter-weight to the dour self-seriousness of U2 at its self-aggrandizing worst. 

I’ve always known U2 as a band that takes itself very seriously, as artists and poets and activists but until I watched the band’s notorious 1988 rockumentary U2: Rattle and Hum for Control Nathan Rabin 4.0 I didn’t know just how seriously Bono and company took themselves before they very successfully re-invented themselves with Achtung Baby and The Zoo TV tour as self-aware irony enthusiasts who were definitely in on the joke. 

Rattle and Hum confirmed that U2 were exactly who I thought they were in my cruelest and most unkind moments, but infinitely worse and more ridiculous. In trying to elevate U2 into Gods Rattle and Hum accidentally reduced them to oblivious fools, whereas savvily playing the fool for over four decades now has elevated Al to the level of a rock God. 

When Rattle and Hum was released in 1988, “Weird Al” Yankovic had already established himself as the king of pop culture parody. U2, meanwhile, unwittingly crowned themselves the accidental kings of self-parody with a documentary/concert film that nearly gave the world a good, long, hard laugh at their expense when all they ever wanted was to be worshiped as gods.

Of course Al would make his debut as a movie star a mere year after Rattle and Hum with 1989’s UHF. But where Bono cast himself in Rattle and Hum as the greatest, most important and profound artist in the history of the universe Al, with slightly more humility, cast himself as a failed burger flipper who becomes the ringleader of a wild circus of a local television station 

UHF does not directly address the absurdity of rock mythology the same way that Al’s wonderful 1985 mockumentary/music video collection The Compleat Al does. But it nevertheless functions as an important corrective to Rattle and Hum all the same in the same. 

Watching Rattle and Hum in 2021 drove home yet again how utterly essential Al’s brand of silliness remains. Pop music doesn’t just benefit tremendously from having a beloved court jester like Al to offset the portentousness of the Stings and Bonos of the world: it absolutely needs him. 

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Also, BUY the RIDICULOUSLY SELF-INDULGENT, ILL-ADVISED VANITY EDITION of  THE WEIRD ACCORDION TO AL, the Happy Place’s first book. This 500 page extended edition features an introduction from Al himself (who I co-wrote 2012’s Weird Al: The Book with), who also copy-edited and fact-checked, as well as over 80 illustrations from Felipe Sobreiro on entries covering every facet of Al’s career, including his complete discography, The Compleat Al, UHF, the 2018 tour that gives the book its subtitle and EVERY episode of The Weird Al Show and Al’s season as the band-leader on Comedy Bang! Bang! 

Only 23 dollars signed, tax and shipping included, at the https://www.nathanrabin.com/shop or for more, unsigned, from Amazon here