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The undisputed king of the rock song parody, Yankovic has been inducing cringes and laughs in equal proportion since the early 1980s. Not an especially gifted singer (to put it politely), he relies instead on cornball puns, clever videos, and sheer trial and error. After a string of '80s classics like the Michael Jackson takeoffs "Fat" and "Eat It," things started to look a little ugly, as anyone who saw the film UHF can attest. Undaunted, he bounced back, with his '90s efforts yielding the hits "Smells Like Nirvana" and the Coolio parody "Amish Paradise," not to mention the disturbing album cover for Bad Hair Day. He's best taken in small doses -- sitting through an entire CD might be considered the musical equivalent of cooling off on a 95 degree day with a glass of warm gravy. Still, whether he's busting out schwag rhymes about computer software ("It's All About the Pentiums") or resurrecting unwelcome oldies (the "Jurassic Park" parody of "MacArthur Park"), Weird Al proves that stupidity, when used wisely, can truly be a virtue.
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