Poodle Hat Totally Explained

Everything about Poodle Hat totally explained

}} Poodle Hat is the eleventh album by "Weird Al" Yankovic. It was released on May 20, 2003. The Album debuted at #17 on the Billboard 200, and later went gold.

Enhanced CD

The album was released on an Enhanced CD. The bonus content includes some of Al's real home videos and his commentary on them, as well as synchronized lyrics and instrumental or acoustic versions of some songs. An Easter egg depicts Al with his wife, Suzanne, who also appears on the CD cover wearing a hat and glasses.

Track listing

Track	Title	Length	(Style) Parody of	Description
1	"Couch Potato" (Jeffrey Bass, Marshall Mathers, Luis Edgardo Resto)	4:18	"Lose Yourself" by Eminem	About a man's addiction to television.
2	"Hardware Store" (Yankovic)	3:45	Original	A man gets overexcited about the new hardware store in town, maintains this exhilaration for months, camps out all night in anticipation of the grand opening, is the first in the new store's door and quickly lists everything the place has to sell including "automatic circumcisers".
3	"Trash Day" (Chuck Brown, Cornell Haynes, Pharrell Williams)	3:12	Parody of "Hot in Herre" by Nelly.	One couple's woes of a dirty apartment the day before the garbage is to be picked up.
4	"Party at the Leper Colony" (Yankovic)	3:38	Style parody of Bo Diddley.	Describes the titular party, with plenty of body-part puns.
5	"Angry White Boy Polka"	5:04	Polka Medley of "angry white boy music" (nu metal, alternative, garage rock, etc.)	A polka medley including the following songs: "Last Resort" by Papa Roach "Chop Suey!" by System of a Down "Get Free" by The Vines "Hate to Say I Told You So" by The Hives "Fell in Love with a Girl" by The White Stripes "Last Nite" by The Strokes "Down with the Sickness" by Disturbed "Renegades of Funk" by Rage Against the Machine, originally by Afrika Bambaataa "My Way" by Limp Bizkit "Outside" by Staind "Bawitdaba" by Kid Rock "Youth of the Nation" by P.O.D. "The Real Slim Shady" by Eminem "Poodle Hat Polka" by "Weird Al" Yankovic
6	"Wanna B Ur Lovr" (Yankovic)	6:14	Style parody of Prince.	The singer attempts to woo a woman with an astoundingly long list of cheesy pickup lines.
7	"A Complicated Song"	3:39	Parody of "Complicated" by Avril Lavigne	Deals with constipation, incest, and decapitation. Reportedly, Al tried to stretch each of these three things into a full song, but failed, so he included all three.
8	"Why Does This Always Happen to Me?" (Yankovic)	4:52	Style parody of Ben Folds (a close friend of Yankovic, Folds plays piano on this track).	Singer laments the fact that whenever there's a massive tragedy, he's personally (usually slightly) inconvenienced.
9	"Ode to a Superhero"	4:53	Parody of "Piano Man" by Billy Joel	Details the plotline of the 2002 film Spider-Man.
10	"Bob" (Yankovic)	2:29	Style parody of Subterranean Homesick Blues	Song title and all of the lines in the song are palindromes.
11	"eBay" (Andreas Carlsson, Max Martin)	3:36	Parody of "I Want It That Way" by The Backstreet Boys	About eBay and the crazy things people list on it.
12	"Genius In France" (Yankovic)	8:58	Style parody of Frank Zappa. Title is a reference to the Zappa song "In France".	About a man who is considered not very bright in his hometown (presumably in America), but finds himself viewed as funny and smart by the French (title is thought by some to be an indirect reference to the urban legend that the French idolize and worship Jerry Lewis). Includes several in-jokes and references to Frank Zappa, including a typically Zappa-esque joke about poodles. The song also features the classic catchphrase "Great Googly Moogly", which Zappa used in "Don't Eat the Yellow Snow Suite" on Apostrophe (') (1974), and elsewhere. Also, the opening guitar solo is performed by Dweezil Zappa and sounds like the opening to Frank Zappa's "I'm the Slime" from Over-Nite Sensation.

Music videos

A music video for "Couch Potato" was to be shot shortly after the album's release, but Eminem denied Al permission to shoot it. Yankovic told the Chicago Sun-Times in 2003: "We were already in pre-production. We believed that it was just a formality, that Eminem just wanted to hear the final mix of the song... And then we got a phone call saying he wasn't going to give permission for a video. We were devastated...I certainly don't have any bad feelings toward Eminem. He was gracious enough to let us use the song on the album--and we use "The Real Slim Shady" in the "Angry White Boy Polka" medley, too. But this is the first album I've ever released without an accompanying video."
A quick video for "Bob" was shot instead and used on the tour and the 2003 edition of Al TV. The video for "Bob" can now be found on the DVD. The video for "Bob" is an obvious take off of the promo video that was shot for D.A. Pennebaker's Dont Look Back, detailing Dylan's first tour of England, including Bob Dylan's song, "Subterranean Homesick Blues", which was included on Pennebaker's film. The song "Bob" also has very many similarities in rhythm and movement of Dylan's song, "Subterranean Homesick Blues". As the original short film featured famous beat poet Allen Ginsberg, the video shows a rabbi in the background (played by Al's drummer Jon "Bermuda" Schwartz) speaking with a man in a black suit (played by Al's long-time manager Jay Levy).

Personnel

"Weird Al" Yankovic - accordion, keyboards, sound effects, vocals, background vocals, clapping, shouts

Jim West - guitar, mandolin, sound effects, vocals, clapping, shouts

Steve Jay - bass, banjo, sound effects, vocals, clapping, shouts

Rubén Valtierra - piano, keyboards

Jon "Bermuda" Schwartz - drums, percussion, sound effects, vocals, clapping, shouts, laughs

William K. Anderson - harmonica

Kim Bullard - keyboards

DJ Swamp - scratching

Tom Evans - saxophone

Tommy Johnson - tuba

John "Juke" Logan - harmonica

Warren Luening - trumpet

Herb Pedersen - banjo

Joel Peskin - clarinet

Lisa Popeil - background vocals

Lee R. Thomburg - trombone, trumpet

Carmen Twilley - background vocals

Julia Waters - vocals, background vocals

Maxine Waters - background vocals

Bela (Yankovic's pet Poodle, also featured on the album cover) - Barking noises featured in "Genius in France"

Ben Folds - piano on "Why Does This Always Happen to Me?"

Dweezil Zappa - opening guitar solo on "Genius in France"

Production

Producer: Al Yankovic

Engineers: Tony Papa, Rafael Serrano

Assistant engineers: Aaron Kaplan, Doug Sanderson, Antony Zeller

Mixing: Tony Papa

Mastering: Bernie Grundman

Arranger: "Weird Al" Yankovic

Drum programming: Jon "Bermuda" Schwartz

Design: Nick Gamma, Jackie Murphy

Photography: Mark Seliger

Charts

Album

Year	Chart	Position
2003	The Billboard 200	17
2003	Top Internet Albums	17

Awards

Grammy Awards

Year	Award	Winner
2003	Best Comedy Album	Poodle Hat

Further Information

Get more info on 'Poodle Hat'.

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