The Saga of the Gaga and the Al

I am going to say this right now. I am a huge fan of Weird Al Yankovic. HUGE. I have been since before I could properly pronounce his name. While I have not been a long-time Lady Gaga fan, I have more recently come to appreciate her and some of her songs. I still think she's at her best when it's her own voice and a piano and nothing else. Now imagine my excitement when this hit YouTube.

The story in a nutshell is this. Lady Gaga wanted to HEAR the song before she gave permission for Al to use it, so he spent his money and recorded it, only for her to say no. She was well within her rights as an artist to say no. I can understand Al being a little miffed at this. He was also legally well within his rights to post it on the Internet. Good for him!

So here's my thoughts on this. I don't know if I really care for it that much. It's a great bit of Weird Al writing, of course. It's fun and perfectly pokes fun at the original without being mean. It's good-natured, good-intentioned fun. I can also totally see why she didn't care for it.

My problem with this is that while it has all of those things that make an awesome Weird Al song, Lady Gaga is so naturally over the top that the song really isn't silly enough. I think Lady Gaga is such an exaggeration that not even the awesome skills of Weird Al can touch her. Again, this isn't meant as a burn on Lady Gaga or Weird Al, just a statement. I thought back to "Like a Surgeon", of Al's parody of Madonna, who Gaga has been compared to countless time. There's just no comparison, really. Madonna, at the time, was still touchable. Lady Gaga is to Madonna as what inflation to the money of the 1950s and today. The difference is that vast.

I would like to hand it to Weird Al for making the attempt. I love his version! I totally want an MP3 of it for my Weird Al playlist on iTunes. I think it's highly accurate as well, but it's just not as silly and exaggerated as the woman herself. When you keep pushing the limits the way Gaga does, well, it makes one a little difficult to parody, I think.

Honestly, Lady Gaga should take it as a compliment that Weird Al thought she was relevant enough to parody. I always think it's a sign someone "makes it" when Weird Al does a parody of their work. Oh well. Call her an ass, call him retaliatory, but either way, the fans still win.

J

Note: Looks like Gaga DID approve it! Her managers are just butt-faces, apparently. Come read about it on Weird Al's Blog. Here's a quote:

"Gaga’s manager has now admitted that he never forwarded my parody to Gaga – she had no idea at all. Even though we assumed that Gaga herself was the one making the decision (because, well, that’s what we were TOLD), he apparently made the decision completely on his own.

He’s sorry.

And Gaga loves the song."

So yay! It gets the Lady Gaga Stamp of Approval, Al gets to put it on his album, and the Human Rights Campaign gets more donations. Winners all around.