So, what have you been listening to lately?

[Dave W]

Alas!, Dave doesn't like Billy Joel either with his "garage & vintage"-elitist rock journo musical taste.

It's just a funny parody, nothing more. Weird Al probably wouldn't really hate on Billy Joel.

Billy's okay by me. His music is unpretentious, unlike Bruce.

BTW, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story is streaming free on Roku. It's really a series of sketches. I thought it was hilarious. Daniel Radcliffe stars as Al, and Al himself plays a slimy record label owner.
https://therokuchannel.roku.com/lp/weird

[uwe]

I get that, there is a faux grassroots-pretentiousness to Bruce's image. But did John Steinbeck ever work in a field?

That Yankovic spoof is hilarious btw!

[westen44]

[Dave W]

^^^

Well, there you have it.

[westen44]

Some artists, believe it or not, haven't had a sense of humor about Weird Al's parodies and have refused him permission.  I don't know the complete list, but I do remember U2, Prince, Paul McCartney, and Led Zeppelin are on there.  McCartney might have agreed, but rejected the use of the words "chicken pot pie" in the parody.  I'm sure there is complete info about all these things somewhere. 

[uwe]

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/75056/9-musicians-who-refused-let-weird-al-yankovic-parody-their-songs

[westen44]

I hadn't heard about some of that, like the part about Eminem, etc.  I try to see both sides of the issue, although sometimes it's hard.  For instance, I didn't like Weird Al's cover of a George Harrison song at the most recent tribute concert.  But I hardly ever like any of those George Harrison tribute concerts.  With a few exceptions, Dhani Harrison himself seems to be the only person who can really do justice to his father's songs. 

[uwe]

Pity, really. Zeppelin's material in all its pious earnestness is unwittingly just bespoke for satire.



But to give credit to Zep (which I rarely do): The existence of this version shows that they did not always prohibit satire. Although in this case they might have regretted it given Harris' later disgracement.

[slinkp]

My favorite Weird Al / Eminem "interaction" is this "interview":

[westen44]

Several posts have already been made about Bruce Springsteen on this thread.  Rather than make an entire thread about him, I'm just going to post this video on this thread.  After watching this, it got me thinking that my comments were too off-the-cuff and also just too harsh for almost no reason.  If I were going to say something now about Springsteen, it would be something similar to this video.  Whoever this guy is, he is more articulate than I am, and also probably has more of an overall grasp of the music world itself.  But the point is what he says about Bruce Springsteen makes a lot of sense to me.  He also made me realize that I also tend to prefer bands over solo artists.  Actually, I already realized that, but now even more so. 

[Dave W]

George would have turned 80 today.

[westen44]

A moment with Dave Edmunds, George Harrison and Carl Perkins.  I bought the DVD this was on several months ago before they make buying DVDs a criminal offense. 

[westen44]

A song which was supposed to be on George's "Somewhere in England" album but was rejected by the record company.

[slinkp]

I miss George.  One of my favorites:

[Dave W]

Fats would have turned 95 today.