Over the years, Weird Al Yankovic has given us humorous parodies on many a popular song (who can forget Eat It to the tune of Michael Jackson’s Beat It?) but this time he’s outdone himself.
His new album Mandatory Fun released July 15th, features eight new songs on video, including a parody of Blurred Lines by Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams. The original song garnered considerable controversy with its sexist lyrics, not-safe-for-work video and that infamous Miley Cyrus 2013 MTV VMA performance which eclipsed Robin Thicke’s dreadful zebra suit.
While Yankovic doesn’t parody the Blurred Lines lyrics explicitly, there is an implicit connection between the two in terms of incorrectness and the very correct. Yankovic’s version is called Word Crimes and it seeks to teach us gramma grammer grammar and speeling spelling. His lyrics target texting, emailing and blogging with wit and precision. They include such frequent errors as the misuse of apostrophe's apostrophes and saying "I could care less" when what is actually meant is "I couldn’t care less".
I wish my English lessons had been this entertaining!
I played the song over and over while writing this and I'm still loving it. There's so much in the video that it's worth seeing it several times. Watch it here and keep an eye out for the typical right wing nutjob poster... Enjoy!
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