Eminem Bars 'Weird Al' Parody Video

WashingtonPost.Com ^ | Saturday, May 10, 2003; 7:53 AM | By NEKESA MUMBI MOODY The Associated Press

[Bobby777]

NEW YORK - Eminem may poke fun at himself in videos, but he doesn't want "Weird Al" Yankovic doing it. Eminem won't give Yankovic permission to shoot a video for his new song, "Couch Potato," a parody of Eminem's Oscar-winning tune "Lose Yourself," Yankovic said.

"The only reason I could glean was that making a Weird Al music video would detract from his legacy as a serious hip-hop artist," Yankovic said Thursday. "It's very disappointing. This could have been my best video ever."

[Bobby777]

I believe we have a right to Weird Al videos ... stop the insanity ... Free Weird Al ... 8)

[Celtjew Libertarian]

Free Weird Al

....In every box of Fruit Loops.

[ChadGore]

Free Weird Al with any purchase of $10.00 or more.

[ChadGore]

bump

[101st-Eagle]

"Serious," "hip-hop" and "artist" should NEVER be used in the same sentence. Exception: As an artist I realize what S**T hip-hop is to serious music.

[Mike Darancette]

Ya ain't nobody till "Wierd" Al does you.

[Wondervixen]

A legacy as a serious hip-hop artist???

Is this like a legacy as a serious X Games skateboarder? Lemme put the two in context for you all...

It's like the legacies of Swept Away, Four Rooms, Who's That Girl, The Next Best Thing, Body of Evidence, and Bloodhounds of Broadway to film.

For those not familier with the above titles, my point is made, but there is one common denominator to all...They are Madonna movies! (No wonder the gap-toothed whore goes around speaking with a british accent when everyone knows she's from Michigan)

[Bobby777]

don't change that channel,
don't touch that dial,
we got it all on UHF,
so, forget about your laundry,
forget about your job,
just crank up the volume,
and yank off the knob,
we got it all, we got it all,
on UHF ...

[martin_fierro]

Now watch Weird Al pose nude in protest.

[Bobby777]

you forgot "Shanghai Surprise" ... 8)

[Scothia]

This is because Eminen is a much more serious artiste than, say, Madonna or Cyndi Lauper. /sarcasm

[Psycho_Bunny]

"Serious," "hip-hop" and "artist" should NEVER be used in the same sentence. Exception: As an artist I realize what S**T hip-hop is to serious music.

I have yet to find any style of music that doesn't have at least one brilliant example of true artistry.  I, personally, find Eminem to be lazy and uninspired however, in terms of Hip Hop, Name of the Game by The Crystal Method is nothing short of true genius.  Weapon of Choice by Fatboy Slim is also quit compelling.

All things being equal, I'd pit Name of the Game against anything Mozart ever wrote.......

....I wouldn't pit it against Bach's work or Beethoven's, though.

[Wondervixen]

No, Shanghai Surprise ranks right down there with Ishtar in the FAMOUS Flop Bin...They are frequently seen riding around Hollyweird together in an EDSEL.

[billorites]

Ya ain't nobody till "Wierd" Al does you.

Like Tipper says.

[thatsnotnice]

Eminem won't give Yankovic permission to shoot a video for his new song, "Couch Potato," a parody of Eminem's Oscar-winning tune "Lose Yourself," Yankovic said.

That's interesting because I never knew they had to get permission to do a song parody. I've heard a lot of them and I can't believe they got permission for some of them.

[Bobby777]

Kofi Annan threatened Weird Al with U.N. sanctions if he did an unauthorized Eminem parody ... LOL

[tet68]

Not the song parody but the video.

[Roscoe]

Rolling Stone:

On the track, Yankovic raps, "Oh! Ozzy's family/Sho' loves profanity/Whoa, the insanity/Oh, dogs that crap and pee/Home of depravity?/No, they live happily."

Eminem signed off on the parody but would not grant permission for a video, a first in Yankovic's eleven-album career.

[GSWarrior]

My grandfather loathed the big band music my father always played. You call that music he would ask? My father swore up and down the Beatles had no talent and nobody would even know who they were in 10 years. I can't see any musical merit to the stuff my kids listen to. My kids absolutely can't stand my alternative country CD collection.

On and on it goes. Talent is in the eye of the beholder.

[SamAdams76]

Why would "Weird Al" even need his permission? I thought that if you were doing a parody, it wasn't copyright infringement. After all, I can't believe that the original artists gave permission to Yankovich to records songs like "Eat It" (parody of Michael Jackson's "Beat It") or the very clever "Amish Paradise" (parody of Coolio's "Gangsta Paradise").

[ewing]

Weird Al Yankovic peaked with 'Amish Paradise' there is no way he could top that.

[DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet]

As a "Close Personal Friend of Weird Al", I will second that.

FREE WEIRD AL!

[freedumb2003]

All things being equal, I'd pit Name of the Game against anything Mozart ever wrote.......

All "hip-hop" is at BEST street poetry analagous to the bongo-banging stuff by the 1950's beatniks

MOST "hip-hop" is simply "kill whitey."

"hip hop" or "rap" and "music" should never be used in the same sentence. It is easy to sit around and compose rhyming poems. To put that to music that has MELODY takes talent.

Music execs have been bemoaning the fact that today's music has no shelf life. It's because it is only angry lyrics that can't be overlooked tomorrows, since the words are the totality of the composition.

To suggest that anything that this terrible culture is even remotely even the same art form of Mozart is hubris of the highest form by and for "art" of the lowest form.

A child of 5 could create "great rap."

[DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet]

That's my favorite, too. (I love a great "Beard Band".)

[freedumb2003]

On and on it goes. Talent is in the eye of the beholder.

The difference is that "music" was at least musical.

You would think if we were able to kill Disco, we could kill rap. But it takes talent even to make disco. To make rap just takes an attitude.

[101st-Eagle]

Now, I have CD"s by FBS and CM (Vegas)..I think I would catagorize them diffently..More along the lines of house, techno, acid or the like with some hip-hop sampled over lush textures. But labels can get tricky I guess-by my own admission.

I just think the freesytle talking thing over simplistic beats type hip-hop, masquerading as some type of musical form is a ludcris ;) proposition. The closest it comes to anything Mozart ever did was possibly his flatulating. It is perfomance art at best and given much too much credibility by industry types and those who make a living writing about such things. Maybe art as comedy or something. I have to admit, I found some of the Buster Ryhmes video stuff hard to turn away from..

Then again people were saying the same thing about Jazz the blue and the beatles at one point or another. So what do I know. Just MHO...

[GSWarrior]

Busta Rhymes does have a compelling stage presence.

[BunnySlippers]

Weird Al Yankovic, shown portraying the rapper Eminem in this recent photo, won't receive permission from the rapper to shoot a video for his new song, ``Couch Potato,'' a parody of the rapper's Oscar-winning tune ``Lose Yourself,'' Yankovic said. ``The only reason I could glean was that making a Weird Al music video would detract from his legacy as a serious hip-hop artist,'' Yankovic said Thursday, May 8, 2003. ``It's very disappointing. This could have been my best video ever.''

[Fraulein]

Slim Shady bump!

[GSWarrior]

I don't work in the music industry, but it seems that the popular music, in the case of rap, is/has been stripped down to its most basic elements--rhythm and beat. What is missing from rap and most of the other pap that is on the Top 40 is actual craftsmanship. It's all product.

[Psycho_Bunny]

To suggest that anything that this terrible culture is even remotely even the same art form of Mozart is hubris of the highest form by and for "art" of the lowest form.

Ya.  

Say, does any part of your house look like this?  Because I'm sitting in that chair as I type.  I'm one of those whack-jobs you may or may not have ever met that actually owns Walter Piston's three books: Counterpoint, Harmony and Orchestration.  I own them because they were required reading for Composition Majors at the Interlochen Arts Academy.  Not the camp mind you, the academy.  

The basis of my acceptance there was a piano sonata I wrote in 8th grade.

I never had the chance to screw off in P.E. like most people in Public High School because, at Interlochen, the first two hours of the day is orchestra rehearsal, in which I played second bassoon even though my Minor was piano.  

As you may well imagine, I've studied and played my share of Mozart.

So, I'm curious about the musical basis of your opinion.  While you're writing it, I'll get back to working on the first movement of my 2nd Piano Concerto......

[ewing]

Actually there are artisitc rappers, but since De La Soul left the scene Hip hop/rap has just gone into the crapper.

[ewing]

That pic is hilarious.

[DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet]

A music parody guy ping.

[TheSpottedOwl]

Eminem is a pretentious jackass.

Weird Al is the same age as me. I remember listening to Dr. Demento's radio show in high school, and Weird Al would send in homemade tapes of song parodies. The one I remember best was Rockin' The Snackbar(Rockin' The Casbah).

His Amish Paradise video was one of his best :)

Is he married?

[freedumb2003]

So, I'm curious about the musical basis of your opinion. While you're writing it, I'll get back to working on the first movement of my 2nd Piano Concerto......

So, only musical elitists can have opinions about music?

Your suggestion that your quals somehow redeem Rap is specious at best.

Although I do not share your child-prodify status, I played orchestra and was a music minor through college. I have played trumpet, french horn, flute and keyboard (it never occurred to me to snapshot my keyboard setup) for 30 years. That included 6 years of music theory and all the rest.

Rap=Poetry at best.

You defend rap because it is the only "music" of your generation. It sucks to suck, huh?

[dvwjr]

Hey, that's not completely fair.

I "liked" Who's That Girl. It was her best starring effort since she was trying to reprise a Judy Holiday screwball blonde comedy. The supporting cast made the movie worth viewing.

There's not accounting for taste :-). Otherwise her acting sips wind...

dvwjr

[Psycho_Bunny]

So, only musical elitists can have opinions about music?

Huh?  How does open-mindedness about the musical value inherent in skillful examples from every style of music qualify me as an "elitist"?  You're the one who's "throwing out the music with the culture."

And, once more, you're wallowing in fallacies of secundum quid: I never addressed the "culture" of Rap or Hip-Hop.  I think the culture of Rap is basically disgusting, useless and inherently dangerous....but were I to allow 'culture' to interfere with my love of music, I wouldn't find any value in the works of racists pricks like Wagner....or Nihilist-Worshiping pie-in-the-sky romanticists like Richard Strauss.

So, I say again, what is the musical basis for your rejection of my initial statement?  Or are you only capable of ignoring my actual premise and throwing ad hominem attacks at points I never made?

[ewing]

[Bobby777]

yes, I believe Weird Al is married, and I think you can see the girl (possibly, I think she's in the covertible with him) in the "UHF" video, available on the "UHF" DVD ... not coincidentally ... nice of them to include it in the extras ...

I'll check IMDB ...

yes he is married and has at least one child, according to them ...

[DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet]

New one:

[Skywalk]

Most hip hop is "kill whitey?"

LOL

Please, if you want to continue posting on this thread, don't utter such stupid statements.

[Skywalk]

Don't bother PB.

A lot on FR so confuse hip hop culture and the unfortunately terrible new wave of "bling! bling!" garbage perpetrated initially by New Orleans-based artists that they REFUSE to acknowledge any artist or song in the field as being worthy of the name "art."

Because Ludacris promotes thuggery doesn't detract from the great talent of the Roots. Because Snoop sings about "hoes" doesn't detract from the production skills of RZA from Wu-Tang.

But hey, we also know there's another element of something that dare not speak its name involved in such critiques.

[Skywalk]

Busta's first couple of albums were actually quite fun(and good.) He is definitely a clown prince.

I think some people forget that just because something is designed to be good dance music or "get hype" music doesn't mean it's not music.

As for rap in general, I don't know, look at most pop or rock in general--they all currently blow. However, between 1992-1996 there was some REALLY good hip hop music out, with good lyrics, sometimes fun and sometimes serious. It's not the only genre infected by commercialist junk like Juvenile.

[JoshGray]

That's interesting because I never knew they had to get permission to do a song parody.

Legally, he doesn't have to, but Weird Al always tries to get permission anyway. "Amish Paradise" was a mistake due to miscommunication -- Coolio didn't approve, but Weird Al thought he did. I don't know how it applies to videos.

[cardinal4]

Free Weird Al--All you have to do is drive to North Carolina and listen to a four hour spiel about time shares.

[JoshGray]

From Weird Al's FAQ

Does Al get permission to do his parodies?

Al does get permission from the original writers of the songs that he parodies. While the law supports his ability to parody without permission, he feels it's important for him to maintain the relationships that he's built with artists and writers over the years. Plus, Al wants to make sure that he gets his songwriter credit (as writer of new lyrics) as well as his rightful share of the royalties.

What do the original artists think of the parodies?

Most artists are genuinely flattered and consider it an honor to have Weird Al parody their work. Some groups (including Nirvana) claim that they didn't realize that they had really "made it" until Weird Al did a parody of them!

What about Coolio? I heard that he was upset with Al about "Amish Paradise."

That was a very unfortunate case of misunderstanding between Al's people and Coolio's people. Short version of the story: Al recorded "Amish Paradise" after being told by his record label that Coolio had given his permission for the parody. When Al's album came out, Coolio publicly contended that he had never given his blessing, and that he was in fact very offended by the song. Al immediately sent Coolio a very sincere letter of apology for the misunderstanding, but has yet to hear back from him.

Have any artists ever turned Al down for a parody?

Even though most recording artists really do have a pretty good sense of humor, on a few very rare occasions Al has been denied permission to do a parody. Actually, the only artist to turn Al down consistently over the years has been… well, I would tell you, but my keyboard doesn't have that little "symbol thingy" on it.

[ewing]

The current crop really arent 'artists' exempting Missy Elliot and Busta perhaps .

Nelly, Dre, and Snoop know how to sample good grooves, but that doesn't make them musicians..

[Straight Vermonter]

The US Supreme Court decided that parodies are at all times legal even without permission because of the Fair Use doctrine (sound familiar freepers?) The relevant case is CAMPBELL v. ACUFF-ROSE MUSIC, INC and involved the band 2 Live Crew (campbell) in a bid to parody the Roy Orbison song "Pretty Woman".