Al doesn't break new ground on Alpocalypse. His latest polka medley, called “Polka Face,” serves as a reminder that Yankovic’s many previous medleys prefigured the modern mash-up. “Style parodies” of the White Stripes and Meat Loaf songwriter Jim Steinman, and straight parodies of Taylor Swift’s “You Belong With Me” and Miley Cyrus’s “Party in the USA,” show it’s the same Al as ever. And why shouldn’t it be? Yankovic's primary purpose is to make people happy, and if things are working, why try anything different?
In fact, his consistency has given him a kind of power in the current era. Lady Gaga, or at least her management, initially opposed Yankovic’s parody of "Born This Way," but relented after a skillful public campaign by Yankovic. He released the song for free and put up a lengthy blog post detailing his efforts to be properly respectful towards a track that had come to be seen as an anthem and towards an artist who paints herself as a kind of cult leader. It's a battle Yankovic lost when going up against Prince and Paul McCartney in decades past, but this times, the terms of public debate had shifted in his favor. No longer are decisions about who parodies who made in record-label offices. Instead, social influencers can come into play. Just as technological changes have allowed Yankovic's form of expression to become much more common, so too has the Internet shifted the criteria we use to legitimize these expressions. Reuse of existing material has come to be seen as something the original artist shouldn't necessarily control, and so the hoops Yankovic jumped through with “Born This Way” actually come off as charmingly quaint. The good-natured public face he's developed, which seemed so lacking in edge before, is now precisely what we want from our public figures. It's given him a kind of power he used to beat the queen at her own game. Being a prophet has its advantages.
My all-time favorite is Amish Paradise, but this is close:
Looks like the work of a prophet, right? Maybe Modern America is actually doomed. Oh well, put on some polka.
No comments:
Post a Comment