In addition to recording his albums, Yankovic has written and starred in his own film, UHF, and his own television show, The Weird Al Show, and directed music videos for himself and other artists including Ben Folds, Hanson, the Black Crowes and The Presidents of the United States of America. He has also made guest appearances on many television shows, in addition to starring in his own Al TV specials.
Though parodies earned him his fame, Yankovic has recorded a greater number of humorous songs with original tunes. Some of these pieces are pastiches (or style parodies), where he chooses a band's entire body of work to emulate rather than any single hit, although Yankovic has many completely original pieces. Most of his albums include a medley which juxtaposes the choruses of various songs in a polka style to accordion music.
Due to his popularity, he has been credited with several songs that are not actually his. A full list of every song he has ever actually done, including the live-only songs, can be found at the Al Songs website. Similarly, a comprehensive list of songs incorrectly credited to him can be found at The Not Al Page.
In 2006, Al recorded the song "You're Pitiful". However, while James Blunt gave his blessing for the parody of his song, "You're Beautiful", Blunt's label Atlantic Records was opposed to it. Though parodies are protected legally, the issue had become "more of a political matter than a legal matter", according to Al, so he decided to not put the song on his next album. Instead, he offered it as a free download from his site.
His latest album, "Straight Outta Lynwood", was released September 26th, 2006. Its first released single, "Don't Download This Song", was made available as a free download on August 21, 2006. The animated video for the track and a link to downloadable MP3 is available at dontdownloadthissong.com. Among other tracks, the album includes parodies of Green Day, Usher, R. Kelly, and Chamillionaire. Chamillionaire's "Ridin' Dirty" is parodied as "White and Nerdy", the second released single from the new album. This single has thus far climbed as far as #9 on the Billboard Singles chart, eclipsing "Eat It" as Al's highest charting single (which went as high as #12).
Official Website: http://www.weirdal.com
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Al Yankovic
Jon ''Bermuda'' Schwartz
Steve Jay
Jim West
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Rick Derringer
Ross Noble
Joe Earley
All About The Pentiums
"Weird Al" Yankovic Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴
Uhh, uh - huh, yeah
Uhh, uh - huh, yeah
It's all about the Pentiums, baby
It's all about the Pentiums, baby
It's all about the Pentiums! (It's all about the Pentiums, baby)
It's all about the Pentiums! (It's all about the Pentiums, baby)
Yeah
What y'all wanna do?
Wanna be hackers? Code crackers? Slackers
Wastin' time with all the chatroom yakkers?
9 to 5, chillin' at Hewlett Packard?
Workin' at a desk with a dumb little placard?
Yeah, payin' the bills with my mad programming skills
Defraggin' my hard drive for thrills
I got me a hundred gigabytes of RAM
I never feed trolls and I don't read spam
Installed a T1 line in my house
Always at my PC, double - clickin' on my mizouse
Upgrade my system at least twice a day
I'm strictly plug - and - play, I ain't afraid of Y2K
I'm down with Bill Gates, I call him "Money" for short
I phone him up at home and I make him do my tech support
It's all about the Pentiums, what?
You've gotta be the dumbest newbie I've ever seen
You've got white - out all over your screen
You think your Commodore 64 is really neato
What kinda chip you got in there, a Dorito?
You're usin' a 286? Don't make me laugh
Your Windows boots up in what, a day and a half?
You could back up your whole hard drive on a floppy diskette
You're the biggest joke on the Internet
Your database is a disaster
You're waxin' your modem, tryin' to make it go faster
Hey fella, I bet you're still livin' in your parents' cellar
Downloadin' pictures of Sarah Michelle Gellar
And postin' "Me too!" like some brain - dead AOL - er
I should do the world a favor and cap you like Old Yeller
You're just about as useless as jpegs to Hellen Keller
It's all about the Pentiums! (It's all about the Pentiums, baby)
It's all about the Pentiums! (It's all about the Pentiums, baby)
It's all about the Pentiums! (It's all about the Pentiums, baby)
It's all about the Pentiums! (It's all about the Pentiums, baby)
Now, what y'all wanna do?
Wanna be hackers? Code crackers? Slackers
Wastin' time with all the chatroom yakkers?
9 to 5, chillin' at Hewlett Packard?
Uh, uh, loggin' in now
Wanna run wit my crew, hah?
Rule cyberspace and crunch numbers like I do?
They call me the king of the spreadsheets
Got 'em printed out on my bedsheets
My new computer's got the clocks, it rocks
But it was obsolete before I opened the box
You say you've had your desktop for over a week?
Throw that junk away, man, it's an antique
Your laptop is a month old? Well that's great
If you could use a nice, heavy paperweight
My digital media is write - protected
Every file inspected, no viruses detected
I beta tested every operation system
Gave props to some, and others? I dissed 'em
While your computer's crashin', mine's multitaskin'
It does all my work without me even askin'
Got a flat - screen monitor forty inches wide wide
I believe that your says "Etch - A - Sketch" on the side
In a 32 - bit world, you're a 2 - bit user
You've got your own newsgroup, "alt. total - loser"
Your motherboard melts when you try to send a fax
Where'd you get your CPU, in a box of Cracker Jacks?
Play me online? Well, you know that I'll beat you
If I ever meet you I'll control - alt - delete you
What? What? What? What? What?
It's all about the Pentiums! (It's all about the Pentiums, baby)
It's all about the Pentiums! (It's all about the Pentiums, baby)
It's all about the Pentiums! (It's all about the Pentiums, baby)
It's all about the Pentiums! (It's all about the Pentiums, baby)
Now, what y'all wanna do?
Wanna be hackers? Code crackers? Slackers
Wastin' time with all the chatroom yakkers?
9 to 5, chillin' at Hewlett Packard?
What?
"All About The Pentiums" is a comedic take on the tech culture and mindset of the late 90s and early 2000s. The song is centered around the idea that the Pentium processor, an innovative breakthrough technology at the time, was the ultimate status symbol among computer enthusiasts. Weird Al Yankovic describes how he is obsessed with his Pentium computer and uses it to accomplish various tasks, from hacking and coding to wasting time on chat rooms.
The first verse of the song talks about different types of people in the tech world, including hackers, code crackers, and slackers. The chorus repeats the refrain "It's all about the Pentiums, baby," emphasizing the importance of this particular technology over all else. The second verse mocks those who do not have the latest and greatest technology, including those who are still using outdated computers or rely on floppy disks to back up their data. The song then ends with a final chorus that invites the listener to join the "Pentium elite" by being a hacker or coder.
Lyrics Š Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: LINDA LAURIE, TERRY M. ETLINGER, SEAN COMBS, JASON PHILLIPS, DAVID STYLES, CHRISTOPHER WALLACE, SEAN JACOBS, DERIC ANGELETTIE, KIMBERLY JONES, WEIRD AL YANCOVIC
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Ancyker
Some of it doesn't but most of it does. For instance:
- Y2K reference, obviously
- While not common, 100GB of RAM is no longer unrealistic (back then it'd be the equivalent to saying 100TB today), I own systems with 128GB
- 40" monitor - I know people with larger, this is no longer unrealistic
- You don't defrag SSDs
- T1s aren't fast (to be fair, this came from a misconception even then, as they weren't fast back then either -- this video is from 1999, cable Internet came out in 1995 and by 1999 it was at speeds around 2+Mbps, T1 is only 1.5Mbps, he should have said T3 [44Mbps] or if he wanted something unrealistic OC-768 or OC-[any large number] for extra unrealism)
- Ctrl+Alt+Del no longer does what it used to on Windows. (Which, imo, is bad. It performed an essential function that Microsoft, for whatever reason, decided wasn't important.)
- And the most glaring, Pentium is no longer the top of the Intel line. "It's all about the core i9s" doesn't quite have the same ring to it though.
These are the ones I remember, there may be more. Most of it holds up pretty well though. Hell, some of the insults gain additional weight because the technology referenced is even older now.
Pittsburgh Pirates Hat
weird al has managed to remain culturally relevant longer then almost everyone he has parodied
Raymond M.
Pittsburgh Pirates Hat
True
acepedro12
To the point I don't even know who he's supposed to be parodying in this one.
amrak63
@acepedro12 I am no expert on rap, but I think he was parodying Puff Daddy or Pee Diddy or Poop Doody or whatever he's calling himself this month.
JA III
No, this was parodying B. O. B
Mike Thompson
True fact
Fierce Krypton
How do you make an entire song about computers and technology and all of it holds up 20 years later?
Fireman 17
Weird Al should totally remix his song to update it.. đ¤
Ancyker
Some of it doesn't but most of it does. For instance:
- Y2K reference, obviously
- While not common, 100GB of RAM is no longer unrealistic (back then it'd be the equivalent to saying 100TB today), I own systems with 128GB
- 40" monitor - I know people with larger, this is no longer unrealistic
- You don't defrag SSDs
- T1s aren't fast (to be fair, this came from a misconception even then, as they weren't fast back then either -- this video is from 1999, cable Internet came out in 1995 and by 1999 it was at speeds around 2+Mbps, T1 is only 1.5Mbps, he should have said T3 [44Mbps] or if he wanted something unrealistic OC-768 or OC-[any large number] for extra unrealism)
- Ctrl+Alt+Del no longer does what it used to on Windows. (Which, imo, is bad. It performed an essential function that Microsoft, for whatever reason, decided wasn't important.)
- And the most glaring, Pentium is no longer the top of the Intel line. "It's all about the core i9s" doesn't quite have the same ring to it though.
These are the ones I remember, there may be more. Most of it holds up pretty well though. Hell, some of the insults gain additional weight because the technology referenced is even older now.
Vengirni
@Ancyker What functions of Ctrl+Alt+Del are you referring to? Task Manager can be opened with Ctrl+Shift+Esc.