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White and Nerdy - Weird Al does it again
• New album and single smash hit in States - and now Grammy nominated too!
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By
The Minx, music editor
Friday,
3 November, 2006
"Weird" Al Yankovic has been making his inimitable music parodies for over 25 years now but only recently scored his first double top - when his new album Outta Lynwood and the single from it, "White and Nerdy", hit the Top Ten Chart in the USA at the same time.
Recently the single also reached Number 1 on the VHI video charts and Al has gained a whole new audience.
The hit single, a parody of Chamillionaire's Ridin' Dirty, details the thwarted attempts of a geek to be a gangsta. Among many hilarious lines - "I'm nerdy in the extreme, I'm whiter than sour cream" - it shows that the 47 year Yankovic still has his finger firmly on the popular culture button.
The first single to come out from the new album "Outta Lynwood" was "You're Pitiful" a parody of James Blunt's massive hit "You're Beautiful". While Blunt himself raised no objection to Al's version, his record company Universal refused, so Yankovic gave it away as a free download on his website.
Rapper Chamillionaire had no such concerns and has publicly praised the parody of his song even providing a link to it on his MySpace website. Al's plans to have a world premiere of White n Nerdy on AOL were scuppered however when the video leaked out unofficially first on YouTube.
Even so the success has not met with widespread approval. While VH1 have given the hysterically funny video extensive airplay, MTV initially refused to air it and is only now giving it consideration.
Meanwhile Al himself has signed up approaching 200,000 new "friends" on his MySpace site and performed the song with his band on Jay Leno's Tonight television show - his first appearance on the show in 21 years.
Plans are now being prepared for a world tour in 2007 which will include Australia and also Europe if the record sells well there too.
The Minx is a long term Al fan and will be first in line for tickets if he does come to the UK.
For more Al we suggest you check out some of Al's earlier classic parodies on the usual music sites. "Amish Paradise" and "The Saga Begins" are highly recommended.
Update December 2006: as of 8 December no copies of Outta Lynwood were available on Amazon UK. Only imports from Australia.
Meanwhile Chamillionaire, in the UK to promote his Ridin' hit, so brilliantly parodied by Weird Al, attracted only 200 fans to a London gig.
STOP PRESS 9 December 2006 For a limited time, the iTunes music store (USA only) is offering a "deluxe video version" of "Straight Outta Lynwood" which includes all the songs on the album PLUS the behind-the-scenes documentary PLUS the 6 animated videos on the DualDisc PLUS the video for "White & Nerdy"! All for the low, low price of just $11.99! Go to article to follow link
On The Lam 2006
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