Under the Scalpel 07.09.09: Weird Al, Lil Kim & T-Pain, and 20 Metal Songs Guaranteed To Get You Thrashing!

Posted by Mark Ingoldsby on 07.09.2009

Weird Al lampoons the Lizard King, Lil Kim & T-Pain get hot and bothered on MySpace, and a list of 20 metal songs that will hit you like a ball-peen hammer! Brought to you by the sometimes humorous, always heartless guitarist of the hard rock band A Simple Complex.

"Under the Scalpel: Dissecting Pop Culture One Song at a Time" is a weekly column written by Mark Ingoldsby, songwriter and guitarist for the hard rock band A Simple Complex. Download three free tracks that will rock your panties off at www.asimplecomplex.com

Weird Al – Craigslist
Lampooning The Lizard King



For more than 25 years, the undisputed king of music parody, Weird Al, has mocked classic artists, like The Kinks, Don McLean, Billy Joel, and Michael Jackson, and today's stars, like James Blunt, TI, Eminem, and Chamillionaire.

His next album is scheduled for release next year. But fans don't have to wait to hear fresh tracks from the guy with six platinum albums and nine Billboard Hot 100 singles under his belt. A five-song EP titled Internet Leaks is being released one song at a time on the Web. The first track, a silly rewrite of TI's "Whatever You Like," was released last year and track two, the Weird Al original "Craigslist," was released last month.

In "Craigslist," Al tackles the music of The Doors, a group I consider to be the worst successful band in history. While some may consider Al's song an homage to a legendary "consciousness-expanding" rock group, I see Al's recording as a competent ribbing of The Doors' music, a distinct sound that makes me want to stab my eardrums with rusty daggers.

For those of you who have been living under a rock for the last 10 years, Craigslist is an online collection of free, localized, online classified ads. It is one of the most visited Web sites on the Internet, primarily used for sales, barter and personals.

Like eBay, there are a fair amount of decent goods and services available at www.craigslist.com, and hundreds, maybe thousands, of crackpots and morons. Ads for items like a "free couch, if you can bend time and/or space" and an "autographed copy of the Bible" (signed by the Big J.C. himself!) are scattered throughout legitimate listings.

Al portrays one of these ridiculous posters in "Craigslist" by offering an old wheelbarrow, a slightly-used sombrero, and a stapler in trade for a "'65 Chevy Malibu with automatic drive" complete with "a custom paint job." He also goes into a tripped-out dialogue about free packing materials. "Just ask yourself: Do you want my Styrofoam peanuts?" he moans soulfully, "You can have my Styrofoam peanuts."

The Craigslist personals section has received a fair amount of press lately due to the controversial nature of the ads that have been posted. Entries of poor taste flood the personals on Craigslist. An exemplary example of this is posting ID# 1188062135, which states, "Looking for the daughter half that was in Rite Aid with her mother (I assume) getting the morning after pill today in Finksburg. You had an amazing body and I would love to be the next reason you have to get another dose of said pill! Hit me up if you're looking for another go round."

Al has crafted his own siren song, pleading the case of a man who was too shy to approach a "blonde half-Asian with a bad case of gas" at the mall with whom he "shared a quick glance" on one fine Saturday. In order to make sure she knows who her caller is, he describes his attire that day as "red Speedos and a hockey mask."

But the biggest entertainment value lies in the many open letters people write to such targets as the "girls snorting coke in the bathroom" and "the fat jogger who spoke to me whilst my dog was taking a dump." Go ahead, see for yourself.

The best part of Al's song happens when he takes a break from emulating the wild moaning and shouting of The Doors' deceased vocalist, Jim Morrisson, to solemnly read his open letter to "the snotty barista at the Coffee Bean on San Vacente Boulevard." He expresses his disgust for the attitude she gave him as he delayed ordering his soy decaf hazelnut latte, effectively holding up 20 people standing behind him, while on a cell phone call with his mother.

Al knocks it out of the park in every regard on "Craigslist." He satisfyingly ridicules the knuckleheads who post preposterous ads on the site while doing a spot-on impression of Morrisson. The music hits the bulls-eye in its recreation of The Doors' sound, going so far as to feature the band's keyboardist, Ray Manzarek, on the track. And, the music video's imagery meticulously captures the trippy feel of late 1960s psychedelia. It's a home run all around.

If I didn't involuntarily lurch into convulsions every time I heard the music of The Doors, or anything even slightly resembling it, I would happily add this track to my collection. Sadly, though, I decline. But if you have always enjoyed the inane ramblings of an overrated junkie as he carries on over the world's worst organ noises, you will appreciate Al's ode to The Doors and enjoy a good laugh too.

Rating: ***** (5 out of 5)
If You Like: The Doctor Demento Show, The Doors

Lil Kim, T-Pain, Charlie Wilson – Download
…Then Delete

After a stint in the clink for conspiracy and perjury, Lil Kim has returned to share a story of love in the digital age. For anyone unfamiliar with Kim, she is best known for doing the lion's share of rapping in the 2001 remake of "Lady Marmalade" for the film Moulin Rouge.

In "Download," the first single from her upcoming album, Kim has taken the main melody (and very dated electronic beat) from Zapp & Roger's laughable 1986 hit "Computer Love" and added a modern storyline to it that is, believe it or not, even worse than the original.

From her first line "I'm on MySpace," this song quickly goes downhill. Kim is crushing on a guy she met on the Internet, and this guy is hardcore... a hardcore techno-geek, anyway. "My baby got me number one on his top eight," she brags, "He a thug so I hit him on his Gmail." Because, as we all know, thugs have always been down wit' da Gmail.

This thug easily seduces Kim with pickup lines that could chase away even the most desperate of cyber-sluts. "He said he wanna explore me like the internet," she sings. What a smoothie. Plus, without actually providing any evidence of his wit or comedic abilities, she insists that this guy is a laugh-riot, confiding, "His sense of humor got me writin' L-O-L." How painfully trite.

How was Kim able to reel in such a fine catch? By posting steamy photos on her MySpace account. "He been lookin' at my sexy pics, said he diggin' my sexy hips. He wanna kiss my sexy lips and download me on his floppy disk." Floppy disk?! Don't forget to bring some Viagra on that first date, girl.

Despite his obvious shortcomings, this guy still gets Kim's CPU fan purring. "Every time I log on, I get so turned on", she gushes, "It's like a orgasm every time he send a text." How about taking your phone off of vibrate mode, and out of your front pocket?

T-Pain, playing the role of 'cyber-stud,' delivers the song's painfully unromantic hook, "When you gonna let me download?" The mental imagery that this lyric creates makes me want to puke into my recycle bin.

Fortunately, it's not all smut and steam. His sincerity pours forth in a line likely stolen from a note in a junior high school trash can, "I meant what I said when I typed that." And T isn't completely head-over-heels over this floozy… yet. "I hope you look like your pictures do," he implores. I've met a few fans of my band whose "creatively-angled" MySpace photos could be used in court as evidence of false advertising. So good luck with that.

In her pathetic efforts to be uber-trendy, Kim doesn't leave the computer references to just mentioning MySpace and Gmail. She fills this track with loads of dull techno-jargon, declaring that "He love to watch my videos on YouTube," and "He even got my screensaver on his iPhone." Guest vocalist Charlie Wilson of The Gap Band takes the song to a new low as he mixes the scatted lyrics from "Computer Love" with a Twitter reference, resulting in the goofy lyric, "Shooby doo bop, tweet, tweet, tweet".

I kept looking for Weird Al in the songwriting credits but couldn't find him listed.

At the beginning of "Download," the letters "TP" are sung. At first, I assumed these letters were a reference to guest vocalist T-Pain. But quite frankly, 'toilet paper' seems to fit better: This song is total crap.

I mean, how can anybody take this song seriously with no mention of Facebook? OMG!!! ROFLMAO!!!!111

Rating: * (1 out of 5)
If You Like: Bobby Brown, Teyana Taylor, Zapp & Roger

Let Me Be Your DJ: Metal

Are you sick of the same ten CDs floating around on your car's passenger seat? Look no further than "Let Me Be Your DJ" to instantly provide you with some fresh tracks, all pre-screened by yours truly and certified as worthy of adding to your playlist.

This week, if you have an appetite for blistering metal riffs, thunderous double-bass drumming, and intense, growling vocals, don't just sit around waiting for the new Slayer, Hatebreed and Megadeth albums to drop. Crank up these songs for over an hour of ball-peen-to-the-head metal that's guaranteed to get you trashing!

A Life Once Lost - Detest
As I Lay Dying - Nothing Left
Bury Your Dead - Hurting Not Helping
Candiria - Sirens
Cavalera Conspiracy - Inflikted
Chimaira - On Broken Glass
Coalesce - The Purveyor of Novelty and Nonsense
Dead Season - Never Decide
Devildriver - Pray For Villains
Dope - 6-6-Sick
Dream Theater - A Rite Of Passage
Droid - No Gods No Master
Five Finger Death Punch - Hard To See (available July 21)
Hellyeah - Hellyeah
Ill Nino - The Alibi Of Tyrants
Lamb Of God - Set To Fail
Machine Head - Aesthetics Of Hate
Slipknot - Sulfur
Sybreed - Emma-0
Throwdown - Holy Roller