Sure there’s air conditioning! Just crank that lever on the door…

If you thought some of the muzak DJ Scratchy played on Mondays was already strange, well, The Nest is aiming to make Mondays really weird for the foreseeable future!  We’re in the early stages of our Top 30 Weird Al Parodies countdown!  The first two entries in this series featured one of Al’s creations from the 80’s and 90’s, so today let’s see a sample of what Weird Al was cooking up in the new millennium….

#28. “Whatever You Like” (Parody of “Whatever You Like” – T.I.)

While canned soup and Twinkies may have a very long shelf life, pop music doesn’t.  Today’s big hit is tomorrow’s record in the discount rack at Sam Goody.  One of the challenges Weird Al faced in releasing his work the conventional way is that the original material he used to write the popular parodies that drove his fame might very well end up dated before his albums ever reached the shelves.  So rather than see the internet as a vast wasteland of illegal downloading as most music artists of the 2000’s did, Al embraced the digital age and experimented with releasing parodies straight to the net in 2008..

Four hours to download a song? What is this, dial up?

This allowed Weird Al to put out a parody of a song while it was still in the #1 slot on the Billboard chart.  In October of that year, Atlanta based rapper T.I. had a hit with the song “Whatever You Like,” about a man who’ll buy whatever his girl wants to keep her happy.  You can click the link to hear the song if you want to compare it to the parody (you don’t have to listen too long to get the gist of it)…

Since the economy went in the toilet at that very time, Weird Al chose to tell that song from the point of view of a man who…… well, doesn’t quite have an unlimited budget to keep his gal by his side…

This is one of five Weird Al parodies where I was not familiar with the original work beforehand, and the only one that made this countdown.  It was too good to leave out!  Yeah, the hilarious animated video that was made for the song helps… but the cheap and tacky gifts Weird Al offers for his sweetie are just too good!  White Castle?  Government cheese?  Underwear from Goodwill?  What a catch this guy is!

Uh oh. Looks like I got a new boss…

Another fun fact is that this is Weird Al’s only parody that doesn’t change the title of the song!

You want more Weird Al.  I got more Weird Al.  You can have more Weird Al next Monday…