Customer Reviews

In 3-D

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is one of Weird Al Yankovic's best cds. It starts with a really cool parody of Michael Jackson's "Beat It" called "Eat It", then it is the best song on the record: Midnight Star. A wonderful song about the crazy lying magazine "Midnight Star". Next, its a parody of Men at Work's "The Safety Dance", called "The Brady Bunch", a catchy song about how Al doesn't want to watch The Brady Bunch. Then, its "Buy Me A Condo", which is not the best, but ok. Then "I Lost On Jeoprody" a very good song about Al losing on Jeoprody.Then, the polka, "Polkas On 45" another medley. Then, "Mr.Popeil", another ok song. Then, King of Suede, another ok song. Next, "That Boy Could Dance", another ok sopng. then, "Theme From Rocky XIII(The Rye or the Kaiser)". Finally, Al ends the album with an awesome "Nature Trail To Hell".

Thanks to my changing taste in humor-- and not finding much to laugh at in his two most recent albums-- I'm not nearly as big on "Weird Al" Yankovic as I used to be. Now instead of finding most of his tunes side-splittingly funny, I just listen to 'em and wonder what I ever saw in 'em. There are a few that still have high comedic impact on me (such as "The Night Santa Went Crazy" and the immortal "Fat"), but otherwise I've pretty much lost interest in the Weird One. A shame, I know. But life goes on, ya know?

Despite my flagging enthusiasm for Al and his music, I still have a soft spot for his breakout Al-bum, "In 3-D". While the "Eat It" is kinda dorky, and "I Lost on Jeopardy" is fairly ludicrous, these ain't the tunes that make this CD my fave pick of the Al catalog. And it ain't the ridiculously corny "Nature Trail to Hell", either. "Midnight Star" is still reasonably amusing, although not quite as much as some of the more sensational tabloid headlines it makes fun of. "That Boy Could Dance" still grabs a smile or two from me mainly because I can relate to the subject of the song. Well, except for the dancing part that is. And settin' up a dance studio. And ownin' half of Montana. And-er now that I think about it, I guess I really don't have much in common with the song's subject...

Anyhoo, I found myself pretty irked by "Polkas on 45", which was the first of Al's annoying polka medleys of various pop song lyrics which became an obligatory feature of almost all subsequent al-bums. Although I used to enjoy this and the other polkas, nowadays I'm glad my CD player has a Skip Track option, if ya know what I mean...

But when it's all said and done, track that really makes it all worthwhile is... the "Theme from Rocky XIII", also known as "The Rye or the Kaiser", a take-off of Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger" from the Rocky III soundtrack. It's one of the small handful of Al tunes (along with "Achey Breakey Song" and "Fat") whose lyrics I fully know by heart, and never get tired of listening to. And thanks to rumors of yet another Rocky sequel possibly being made in the near future, it's as relevant a tune today as it was when it first came out over two decades ago. Relevant to what, I haven't a clue...

'Late

Weird Al's second album shows him in great form. The food songs, songs on TV, and song send-ups, social commentary, silly lip music, and silly noises, are all there, but there is also featured a Weird Al standard present in nearly every album. I'll get to that later.

"Eat It" is the first Michael Jackson song to be sent up--"Fat" would be done on the Even Worse album. Here though, the booming synths and guitars are replicated by Al's group of musicians instead of the accordion: "Eat it/eat it/get yourself an egg and beat it/have some more chicken have some more pie/it doesn't matter if it's boiled or fried." There's a great approximation to Eddie Van Halen's guitar solo here.

Bright 80's keyboards start "Midnight Star," about the nonsense found in supermarket tabloids, such as one's pets being extraterrestrial and most important, the story of the man born without a head, that the Incredible Frog Boy is on the loose again. I myself wonder what makes people want to read this rubbish in the first place. They can't have much circulation, but if they do, small wonder the average IQ of this country is in double digits.

Al's observations on TV shows and the stunning variety of programmes is a constant theme in his music. "The Brady Bunch," which is a send-up of Men Without Hats' "The Safety Dance" mentions Mr. Rogers, Three's Company, Barney Miller, MTV, the Addams Family and sundry others before later singing the theme song to the Brady Bunch in the later verse. His comment: "You can watch TV till your eyes fall out of your head" and "television is taking its toll" is a well-known observation on how much TV Americans watch.

"Buy Me A Condo" is Al's poke at reggae, about a Jamaican guy who decides to give up island living, go to New York, cut off his dreads, wallet full of credit cards, get the T-shirt with the alligator on, and basically conform to what Randolph Bourne referred to as the tasteless grey sludge, i.e. the melting pot.

"I Lost On Jeopardy" is another TV song, but this time from the point of view of a game show contestant. Why bother humiliating oneself? As the spoken voiceover says, "You lost and let me tell you what you didn't win: a 20-volume set of the Encyclopedia International, a case of turtle wax, and a year's supply of Rice-A-Roni, the San Francisco treat, but that's not all. You also made yourself look like a jerk in front of millions of people and you bought shame and disgrace on your family for generations to come. ....You're a complete loser!"

"Polkas on 45" is the first Weird Al polka medley, with accordion, silly noises, taken from key verses from well-known songs and strung together. Here's what he does: Devo's "Are We Not Men: We Are Devo", Deep Purple's "Smoke On the Water", Berlin's "Sex, I'm A...", Beatles, "Hey Jude", The Doors' "L.A. Woman", Iron Butterfly's "In A Gadda-Da-Vida", Jimi Hendrix's "Hey Joe", Talking Heads' "Burning Down The House", Foreigner's "Hot Blooded", The Police's "Every Breath You Take", The Clash's "Should I Stay Or Should I Go", The Rolling Stones' "Jumpin' Jack Flash", The Who's "My Generation."

"Mr. Popeil" is another TV song, about those commercials introducing those brand new time-saving gadgets, like Vegematics. "Please no CODs, don't miss out on these deals."

"King Of Suede" sends up The Police's "King Of Pain" with a clothing sale motif. Instead of "That's my soul up there" refrain, we get "Is my size up there?"

"That Boy Could Dance" has a great rhythm and some funny lyrics. "Theme From Rocky XIII" is a parody of Survivor's "Eye Of The Tiger" and with three Rocky movies done by 1984, is a look at a future Rocky Balboa, who "sold his gloves, threw his eggs down the drain", and runs the neighborhood deli. "But you just can't go wrong with the rye... or the Kaiser" goes a sample refrain.

"Nature Trail From Hell" is a song built around a movie trailer for cheesy teen horror films. Al evolves from his debut with silly and funny results. Next up, my personal favourite Weird Al CD, Dare To Be Stupid.

In this album, Al seems more developed than he was in his debut album, but he still has some problems. His originals are still lacking, even though they are much better on this album than on his last one. His parodies are still his greatest strength. "Eat it" is probably one of the funniest songs I have ever heard. Weird Al continues to show his tremendous talent and great sense of humor, and while this album is not his best, it is still very good.

"Weird Al" Yankovic's 1984 album "In 3-D" shows a lot of improvement over his debut album from the previous year. Instead of basically featuring Yankovic on accordion backed by whoever was handy (e.g., Jon "Bermuda" Schwartz and Rick Derringer), "Weird Al" actually has his own band this time around. Consequently, his wicked sense of parody remains intact but there is now a music proficiency that makes the songs even better for the simple reason that it is even funnier when the songs "sound" pretty much the same except for the funny lyrics sung by the guy with the weird voice (this is the same attention to detail that Yankovic employs successfully in his best music videos). The effectiveness of this is proven with the very first track, which proved less is more by taking Michael Jackson's "Beat It" and removing one letter to make it "Eat It". In retrospect, "Weird Al" gets added props for being the first one to seriously make fun of Michael Jackson (today everybody does it, but seldom as well). When you listen to the song pay attention to Rick Derringer's guitar solo; when you watch the music video notice that the key dancers/gang leaders are the same dudes from the original. "Weird Al" Yankovic is into making fun of songs, but he takes his craft very seriously.

"In 3-D" also provides the first example of what would become a staple on all future "Weird Al" albums, the polka medley. "Polkas on 45" goes for classic tracks and while it lacks the polish of later efforts the raw intensity of recognizable songs (e.g., "Hey Jude") down at a frenzied pace is either great (my view) or a complete abomination (my wife's view). The best efforts on this album are better than what we had the first time around. To "Eat It" add "The Brady Bunch," which manages to actually work the lyrics from the sitcom's theme song into the melody of Men Without Hat's "Safety Dance," and "I Lost on Jeopardy," while a obviously tack to take with the original, is wickedly funny. The original material here is no better than it was on Yankovic's first album and one advantage of having it on CD is that you are not so much aware that the first side of the album is a lot better than the second side. However, towards the end you do get to "Theme From Rocky XIII" (a.k.a. "The Rye or the Kaiser"), which reaffirms Yankovic's strength in attacking purveyors of pomposity such as Sylvester Stallone. "In 3-D" is a step better than the debut album but not quite worth the extra star.

So... In 3-D. A very good Al-bum with six really good songs, three mediocre/bad ones and two pretty good ones.

1. Eat It - 5/5. Classic. Nuff said
2. Midnight Star - 5/5. Hilarious song about a tabliod newpaper. Contains the immortal line: "They're keeping Hitler's brain alive inside a jar". Good tune, also.
3. Brady Bunch - 4/5. I can relate to this one.
4. Buy Me A Condo - 2/5. Ok, at best
5. I Lost On Jeopardy - 5/5. Another great one. Music video is very funny.
6. Polkas On 45 - 5/5. One of his best polkas. Al creates polka versions of classic rock songs.
7. Mr. Popeil - 1/5. Every Al-bum has one of these.
8. King Of Suede - 4/5. Funny Police parody.
9. That Boy Could Dance - 3/5. Okay.
10. Theme From Rocky VIII (Rye Or The Kaiser) - 5/5. Great parody of the Rocky films, and another great food song.
11. Nature Trail To Hell - 5/5. Hilarious satire on those stupid teen slasher films. A great epic (six minutes in length) with cool music and a hilarious backwards line: "Satan eats Cheez Wiz". People who find this offensive and potty-mouthed, should either get a life, or watch a Quentin Taratino film, whatever comes first.

So, this is worth buying for: "Eat It", "Midnight Star", "I Lost On Jeopardy", "Polkas On 45" "Theme From Rocky VIII (Rye Or The Kaiser)", and "Nature Trail To Hell".

This is "Weird Al's" second album and home to his first major hit (in Australia anyway) Eat It (parody of Beat It). Other great parodies are Theme From Rocky XIII (parody of Eye of the Tiger) which is about the thirteenth rocky movie which at the time Al like everyone obviously else assumed would be made. It portrays Rocky as a fat overweight, but no bum fighter who has retired and is running his local deli. Extremely funny. King of Suede and That Boy Could Dance are other great parodies but I am unfamiliar with the actual names to those songs.

Some of the original song's background music are a bit dated but you would expect that from an album written in the early 80's. Their lyrics however are hilarious especially the second track Midnight Star. Midnight Star is about tabloid newspapers and all the garbage they contain such as Alien's from outer pace are sleeping in my car and eat jelly doughnuts (donuts for those in USA) and lose twenty pounds a day. This is one of the funniest songs ever written. Other great tracks are Nature Trail to Hell which is about Horror Movies and I lost on Jeopardy about Al's performance on the game show Jeopardy.

This album is a must for all "Weird Al" fans and contains Al's first polka medley Polkas on 45.

Listening to Weird Al Yankovics' albums makes me really laugh whenever I listen to them. I first got his Greatest Hits albums before I went on for his other recordings. Like many, Weird Al caught my attension upon the release of this one back in '84 (man, i's just a little brat..er, 'kid' then). I never had this album until I happen to find a copy of this on vinyl at a thrift shop - and it's in this album where I found out Weird Al actually has his own originals (not a parody of certain songs that is). This one is among Weird Al's best works. Yankovic is brilliant to find some ground of topics for his materials: the Tabloids ("Midnight Star"), consumerism ("King of Suede", "Theme from Rocky...", "Buy me a Condo"), and the domestic 80's lifestyle which likely hadn't spared most of us who lived through those days ("Brady Bunch", "Eat It", "Nature Trail To Hell"). And other than being funny-- hell! they made sense. Say, if any of you who may be reading this know's about the backward message on the last trk - pls tell me all about it (don't wanna scratch me vinylLP copy)Thanx.
Oh, and btw -- the LP (ie. 78 rpm record) of this album have the ff lines etched on its vinyl: "POLKA DOWN WITH YOUR BAD SELF" <on Side1>, and "NOW HOW MUCH WOULD YOU PAY?" <on Side2 (a line fr it's first track "Mr. Popeil")>

IN 3-D was Weird Al Yankovic's breakthrough- the album where he began to establish himself as one of the biggest cult artists of his time. Of course, the song that helped start all this was "Eat It," infamously known as his parody of Michael Jackson's "Beat It." Some would argue the single's success because of MJ's current superstardom- the song almost made the Hot 100's Top 10!-, but the thing is, "Eat It" was a clever record; from Yankovic's impressive delivery to the appealing (yet dated) production, it's arguably Weird Al's best song.

Which, isn't saying the rest of the album is forgettable, as it contains more of the best music Yankovic committed to tape. His hopelessness in "I Lost on Jeopardy" (a parody of the Greg Kihn Band's "Jeopardy") is hilarious; and he sends a nice ode to the standard clothing store in "King of Suede." And "Theme from Rocky XIII," aka "Rye or the Kaiser," may as well be a fitting ode to the legacy of its hero, provided that more unnecessary tales come out. "Polkas on 45" is also an enjoyable arrangement of some of the more notable songs during the long player's prime years. The originals may not be as memorable as these five songs, but they still demonstrated that Yankovic was more than just a flash-in-the-pan, especially in "Midnight Star"; "Buy Me a Condo"; and "Mr. Popeil."

So, in other words, IN 3-D was not just a conduit for its big single- it was overall a very good record from start to finish. In fact, the only time Yankovic stumbled was with "The Brady Bunch," especially when he tried to work the TV show's theme in the melody of "The Safety Dance." But a flaw like that isn't able to drag down the rest of this album, which may stand as an artifact, albeit a really good one that is still appealing years later. Yankovic would occasionally reach the quality of IN 3-D's high points again on future efforts, but he had trouble re-creating this album's overall appeal.

This CD has a parody from one of my favorite musicians, Michael Jackson. So in some way, that makes me want to listen to it. It also has some of my favorite tracks overall from Weird Al like Theme From Rocky XIII and of course, Eat It.