Straight Outta Wal-Mart with Straight Outta Lynwood

New Weird Al! Whoo! :)

I went the extra "White & Nerdy" mile and went to Wal-Mart at 12:30 last night to grab a copy of "Straight Outta Lynwood," and it's really good. It's not my favorite Al ("Running with Scissors" still holds a strong place in my heart), but there's a lot of really great stuff here. In order...

--The tracks that were previously released on Al's MySpace page are awesome, as noted...the CD opens with the Chamillionaire parody "White & Nerdy" and closes with the soon-to-be-classic "Don't Download This Song."

--"Pancreas," a musical tribute to that most comical of organs, didn't really impress me at first, but the more I've listened to it, the more I like it. There's some great musical invention here.

--The Green Day parody "Canadian Idiot" crams every Canada joke into 2 minutes that you can, and is very funny. (J. won't like the line about curling. :) )

--"I'll Sue Ya" may be Al's most hard-rocking tune ever, with a surprisingly catchy baseline over some very funny lines about our lawsuit happy culture. ("I sued Colorado because it looks a bit too much like Wyoming.")

--"Polkarama," the traditional polka medley, is, as always, more entertaining if you know the songs he's using, and as someone who doesn't listen to much modern pop music, it kinda went over my head. Anyone who does listen to modern pop wanna post their take?

--"Virus Alert" is a very fast-paced tribute to that most annoying of modern computer trends, and very entertaining. Musically, it almost feels like 80's pop, which is an unusal departure for Al.

--"Confessions Part III," an Usher parody, is hysterical, as Al confesses to everything from infidelity to hogging the last of the rice krispies, while noting how rediculous it is to break up your soul-exposures into episodes.

--"Weasel Stomping Day" may be my favorite of the whole album, even at only 1:30 or so...I defy anyone to hear the sound of rodent's getting crushed and not at least chuckle. A light and upbeat tribute to a joyfully masochistic holiday ("It's a tradition, that means it's okay!"), it may be the greatest companion song to "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park" ever.

--"Close But No Cigar" is also brilliant, an original about a guy who keeps nit-picking every relationship in beautifully absurd ways. ("She kept using the word 'infer' when I know she meant 'imply.'")

--"Do I Creep You Out" is a bit historic, as Al first takes aim at an American Idol (Taylor Hicks), with great success (though somewhat brief success, as the song itself is short enough as it is). The overblown chorus and climax exactly captures the phony bravado of the Idol crowd, and one must applaud Hicks as well for having the guts to let Al go through with it.

--Then comes "Trapped in the Drive-Thru," a parody of R. Kelly's "Trapped in the Closet." It runs...get ready...10:50. No typo. Al's done rambling epics before, but always originals...he's never tackled this big a parody before, especially one with as bizarre a premise...it's nothing more or less than a depiction of a couple heading to get some dinner at a drive thru. That's it, really. I think this is one where its success is truly in the ear of the individual...me, I loved it. The sheer absurdity of spending nearly 11 musical minutes documenting a relatively uneventful trip to grab food is what I find funny. You may think differently.

That's the album...at least, the musical side. Thing is, this here is a dual-disc release, one side musical CD, the other side DVD. While I HATE double-sided discs, this one has so much stuff crammed on there that I can forgive it. Side B features:

--The whole album in 5.1 surround sound, an enhanced stereo mix and a karaoke mix. All with on-screen options for the hearing impaired. Tres cool.

--A 10-minute behind-the-scenes featurette, as we see Al and the band working on the music in the studio.

--And...SIX new music videos of all the album's originals, done by prominent animators from the Academy Award-nominated Bill Plympton to the guys from "Robot Chicken" (which, if you saw the show last Sunday, you've already seen). Just a terrifically packed set of extras which would only be made complete with the inclusion of the "White and Nerdy" video, which sadly was completed after the album was.

All in all, an excellent CD with some truly nifty special features added in. If you're an Al fan at all, it's well worth the buy, and at 14.88 (at Wal-Mart, anyway) it's uber-cheap, too. Awesome stuff.