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Comment by yellowstuff | Hacker News Reader

Sadly, it's hard for me to imagine Weird Al will have much appeal to younger generations. If you've heard "Bad" 1000 times then his parody of it is hilarious, if you've heard "Bad" once on an oldies station maybe the parody still sounds goofy and funny, but you won't have the context to totally get the joke.

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In the early 80s, I knew "Yoda" before I knew "Lola". Thanks to Disney's persistence, my kids now know and giggle at "Yoda" (picked up from the internet, not me) and only vaguely know that it came from some old song somewhere.

For me it's 90's/Amish Paradise/Gangster's Paradise.

Well, he's continuing to do new music, rather than relying on just playing "My Bologna" a million times. He's done Lady Gaga at least, so I think he'll last longer than you might guess (hope so!).

Nobody would remember The Knack if it weren't for My Bologna. In their day, they were marketing themselves as "The Next Beatles". I bet Weird Al will still be making new song parodies when nobody can remember Lady Gaga but for Perform This Way.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Knack

>However, the band's rise to the top of the charts also precipitated a backlash. Capitol's packaging of Get the Knack included a perceived cover likeness to Meet the Beatles! with the record's center label being the same design and style as the Beatles' early 1960s LPs. Coupled with the band's "retro" 1960s look and pop/rock sound, the company's stylings led detractors to accuse them of being Beatles rip-offs, which the band and their record company denied. Fieger acknowledged the band's likeness to the Beatles, claiming that it was their intention to present the Knack as a replica of the British Invasion. He went on to mention how fans of the Knack had not been able to experience the times of the 1960s, and that it was wrong to deny them the privilege of experiencing something similar. Critics fought back, claiming the band was imposing inadequate memories of the 1960s on those who didn't know better. Soon, as Get the Knack became more popular, the band was met with hostility from other artists who felt the intense marketing of the band was invalidating their own efforts of invoking the 1960 sound. This perception, and the perception that the object of some of the Knack's songs were teenaged girls (subsequently acknowledged when the band were years older), quickly led to a "Knuke the Knack" campaign led by San Francisco artist Hugh Brown.

I really enjoyed "Get the Knack" and was looking forward to their follow-up. When they named it "But the Little Girls Understand" I decided I couldn't support those pedophiles any more and never listened to, never mind bought, the album.

Hello nobody here, In my world 40plus crew everyone knows the Knack , my bologna first I’ve heard of it. So thanks for that.

I’ll give this to My Sharona: buried in that song is one of the best guitar solos in pop rock of those years.

Which one? There’s two!

The long solo, for sure. The one that starts about around 2:35 on the album version. The single edit removes it.

Some of his stuff is timeless, like Word Crimes, which is as catchy and educational as Schoolhouse Rock.

My kids are really into Weird Al and we have almost all of his tracks on CD or iTunes. I’ve even taken them to see him live in London.

They may not appreciate the references to the original songs but they can still enjoy the songs for what they are.

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