Music Review: Weird Al Yankovic - Whatever You Like

"Weird Al" Yankovic has released a new single on iTunes and the web called "Whatever You Like", which is a parody of T.I.'s song "Whatever You Like". He turns T.I.'s version on its head and uses lyrics to comment on the state of today's economy.

The beauty of Weird Al is that occasionally he can take a parody and make it really poignant to the currents of society. With everyone's retirement plans going downhill quickly and the job and housing markets being as rocky as they are, everybody's on edge. (On the plus side, gas prices are dropping finally, but as my wif.e and I were discussing the other day, it's sad that we're pleased at the fact that gas is now less than $3.00 a gallon.)

Yankovic again works his magic on the lyrics for this piece, making light of the fact that we're all scaling back on going out and going out to eat, among other things.

"Take you out to dinner, anywhere that you please Like Burger King or Mickey Ds And baby you can have whatever you like I said you can even have the large fries..."

and

"You like Top Ramen, need Top Ramen Got a cupboard full of 'em, I'll keep 'em coming You want it, I got it, go get it, just heat it Dump the flavor packet on it and eat it..."

He's got a talent for taking pop culture and turning it, so it's great that he no longer has to wait to release his new material to the public. With the Internet, he can keep things fresh and topical and release them when they're most appropriate, rather than waiting to put a whole album together.

Al recently shared his excitement in a MySpace blog entry: "One of the hardest things I've had to deal with in my career is keeping my material topical even though I only release albums every 3 or 4 years. Now, with the advent and popularity of digital distribution, I don't have to wait around while my songs get old and dated - I can get them out on the Internet almost immediately. It kind of boggles my mind - I thought of the idea for this new song a week ago, and next week it's getting released!"

Article Author: Fitz

Brian Fitzpatrick (aka "Fitz") is a software engineer and writer living in Colorado Springs, Colorado, with his wife, two daughters, two dogs, and two cats -- trying desperately to survive the chaos!

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