"Weird Al" Yankovic and the Lost Generation

“Weird Al” Yankovic has a great line about how for critics, his golden age is always when they just happened to be ten years old, forever the perfect age to be introduced to the man, the music and the magic. 

It’s hard to overstate the role childhood nostalgia plays in Al’s enduring appeal. In that respect Al’s catalog is like another venerable pop culture institution: Saturday Night Live. 

As with Al, my appreciation and understanding of Saturday Night Live is irrevocably rooted in the era in which I found it. 

My Saturday Night Live is the late 1980s incarnation. I was too young for the original version of the Not Ready For Prime Time Players. The Doumanian and Ebersol years were similarly before my time but as I entered my tween and teen years, I fell head over heels in love with Saturday Night Live. 

Objectively, I think that the late 1980s version of Saturday Night Live was, if not the single best incarnation, then certainly one of the best. The cast was absolutely magnificent: Phil Hartman, Jon Lovitz, Kevin Nealon, Jan Hooks, Nora Dunn, Mike Myers and Dana Carvey. Even Dennis Miller was hilarious back then and the writing staff was similarly bonkers.

My version of “Weird Al” Yankovic, meanwhile was the original version. 1984’s In 3-D is one of the first records I owned and remains one of my all-time favorite albums. I was blessed in that I discovered Al at the very beginning of his career as an album artist, MTV fixture and cultural force. 

In 3-D and the albums that followed would consequently always be special for me even if I didn’t go on to work with Al on multiple books. Listening to those albums is like mainlining the non-traumatic aspects of my childhood. Everything brings back a fond memory, whether it’s a beloved original like “Dare To Be Stupid”, a parody of a fixture of my childhood like “Eat It” or “Like a Surgeon” or a medley that smashes together all of the songs that were popular during a specific year in a merry, madcap musical mash-up. 

For generations younger than me 1992’s Off the Deep End, 1999’s Running With Scissors and 2006’s Straight Outta Lynwood are “Weird Al” Yankovic’s seminal albums because they were the albums released when they were children and Al wasn’t just an unusually kid-friendly artist: he was a goddamn revelation. 

But where Saturday Night Live has aired continuously for forty-six years Al has not released an album of new music since 2014’s Mandatory Fun. 

That means that there is an entire generation of children who do not have a “Weird Al” Yankovic album to call their own the way I did with In 3-D and Dare to Be Stupid. There’s an entire generation that does not know the joy of discovering a new “Weird Al” Yankovic album that perfectly encapsulates an important era in their childhood musically, culturally, cinematically and otherwise. 

There’s a whole young generation that doesn’t have an album that combines parodies of the songs of their youth with pastiches of timeless artists and polka medleys that double as irresistible time capsules of the era that birthed them. 

And that, readers, is a goddamn shame. At this point Al has created enough for several lifetimes. I will forever appreciate Al’s incredible body of work but it does seem unfortunate that kids in the future might never know the joy of discovering Al through a new album that rocks their world in every possible way. 

That has not, of course, kept children from discovering “Weird Al” Yankovic anew. My six year old son Declan is a “Weird Al” Yankovic super fan even if he does not have a new “Weird Al” Yankovic to serve as the soundtrack of his childhood. 

The advantage to kids getting into Al now is that while there has never been a longer wait for a new album there has also never been more “Weird Al” Yankovic music for him to listen to in the form of his sixteen albums and countless TV and movie appearances. 

Declan doesn’t have a new Al album to call his own. Instead he has all of Al’s albums, from 1983’s “Weird Al” Yankovic to 2017’s Medium Rarities, to get into. 

There’s something beautiful about that as well and I’ve been fascinated by how Declan will get really into a polka medley for a time period before he was born in “Polka Face” from 2011’s Alpocalypse. 

Once he learns how to read, Declan will also have the two books his daddy wrote about Al. That’s a pretty special, pretty intense connection in its own right but I would love it if he had that plus a new “Weird Al” Yankovic studio album because I would not be an entitled American consumer if I did not want it all, and want it NOW. 

Help ensure a future for the Happy Place during an uncertain era AND get sweet merch by pledging to the site’s Patreon account at https://www.patreon.com/nathanrabinshappyplace

PRE-ORDER The Joy of Trash: Nathan Rabin’s Happy Place’s Definitive Guide to The Very Worst of Everything and Get an Exclusive signed 5x7 Weird Meets Trash card at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/weirdaccordiontoal/the-joy-of-trash

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  

Help ensure a future for the Happy Place during an uncertain era AND get sweet merch by pledging to the site’s Patreon account at https://www.patreon.com/nathanrabinshappyplace

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