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Yes, the title being unnecessarily long WAS necessary.
Yes, the title being unnecessarily long WAS necessary.
Ever wondered what constitutes "obscure" Weird Al music? This list should help; hey, I might even make it an iceberg chart someday. I hear those were trendy like a year ago.
Go up to any person on the street and ask them to name a Weird Al song. They'll most likely name one of the songs in this tier. They're his most iconic parodies, after all. Think songs like Eat It, Like a Surgeon, Fat, Smells Like Nirvana, Amish Paradise, White & Nerdy, and Word Crimes. As Winter of Polka Your Eyes Out put it, "EVERYONE KNOWS EAT IT, JERK!"
These songs are less known outside of Al's fandom, but there's a good chance someone who hasn't listened to Al in 20+ years will be able to name them. Songs like My Bologna, I Lost On Jeopardy, Dare To Be Stupid, or his polka medleys.
These songs are known by just about anyone in Al's fandom. Anything on his main 14 albums fits in this category, especially the parodies. Songs like You Don't Love Me Anymore, Hardware Store, and Mr. Frump In The Iron Lung.
This is where Al's most well known unreleased songs go, such as old singles like Headline News and You're Pitiful, demos such as the 1981 versions of Happy Birthday, Mr. Frump In The Iron Lung, Gotta Boogie, or the 1979 version of My Bologna, and songs he did for movies and shows, like Spy Hard, Super Duper Party Pony, It's My World (And We're All Living In It), Polkamon, Patterns, etc. Really, anything you'd expect on something like a bonus disc/track on a box set, hence the category name.
This is where the demos from the '70s that never got any airtime beyond Dr. Demento go. Stuff like It's Still Billy Joel To Me, Won't Eat Prunes Again, Baby Likes Burping, You Don't Take Your Showers, and Dr. D Superstar. You'd have to be surfing the web for Weird Al lore 24/7 to know these songs.
This is where songs that nobody has heard except for Al's closest friends, like Bermuda Schwartz, or people who have been following his career since he was a 16 year old with a shoebox cassettecorder. Things like Orgy On My Own, the version of (if memory serves) Happy Birthday with more profane lyrics, and all of the lost demos. Of course, Al's friends can hear these on demand, as Jon "Bermuda" Schwartz has been holding onto every Weird Al demo tape. But we can't, because they've never been uploaded-- and I doubt that's coming anytime soon, Al has said that he'd rather release a nude photo onto the internet than his old demos.
OK, now beat it.