Weird Al's Gaga feud a short one

Revenge was tweet for “Weird Al” Yankovic.

When the musical comedian was denied permission to parody Lady Gaga’s Born This Way in April, he turned to social media for help — and rescued his Alpocalypse CD from oblivion.

“Twitter basically saved my album,” says the 51-year-old squeezebox master from his Los Angeles home. “If it weren’t for that, I’d probably still be waiting for it to come out.”

Even more astounding: It took less than a day. After an angry Yankovic blogged and tweeted about the affair — and posted his song Perform This Way to YouTube — fans took up the cause. Within hours, Gaga’s camp had granted him permission, claiming her manager had nixed the song without consulting her.

“It was the world’s shortest rock ’n’ roll beef,” laughs Yankovic. “But it was a very stressful day for me. It started out very poorly and ended very very well. I’m just glad it’s resolved and I got the album out and can move on to other things.”

At the top of his Canadian to-do list: Filming a TV special at two Toronto concerts on Saturday, hosting the musical comedy night Amp’d at Montreal’s Just For Laughs in a couple of weeks, and making sure his fall tour includes some dates north of the border. But first, he rewound the Gaga saga, pondered his online future and talked about slipping into a digital meat dress.

I am beyond relieved. I am so glad. There was a bit of a rocky road getting there, but things all worked out.

Well, I was on the fence. I knew that whatever she put out was going to be iconic and huge. At the same time, it was a little obvious. For a year, people were asking, ‘When is your Lady Gaga parody coming out?’ Part of me just didn’t want to do what everybody was telling me I should do. And when I finally heard it, part of me was thinking, ‘Oh man, I probably shouldn’t do this, because it’s a very positive, empowering gay-rights anthem.’ It feels like it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to poke fun at it. As a satirist, I probably should feel like nothing is sacred. But there are certain lines I try not to cross, and this one was a little sticky. I finally rationalized that I would do it but donate my proceeds to the Human Rights Campaign.

You could say that, yeah. It wasn’t that I’d been turned down. I was angry because I’d been made to jump through so many hoops. I had never been forced to record a finished version of a song before being told I couldn’t do it. That was unprecedented. I wouldn’t have done it had it not been for me wanting so badly to do this Lady Gaga parody and get my album out. But I had to assume that since they had the lyrics already, there was no way they could possibly turn me down at that point. Yet they did.

It’s immense. Once I had blogged and tweeted the story, I was impressed by how the fans had my back. They were palpably upset, to the point where Lady Gaga was being approached on the street and being asked, ‘How come you’re not letting Al do this parody? What’s wrong with you?’ And that’s the point where she was made aware of the fact I even wanted to do a parody.

I do. I think Lady Gaga has a good sense of humour. And it certainly wouldn’t be the first time a manager had stood in the way of an artist’s wishes. So it all rings pretty true to me.

That notion came up at the end, because it got resolved so quickly. Some people said it smacked of a publicity stunt. But I can guarantee you it was not. I do not like drama. I don’t court controversy. I obviously got a lot of publicity out of it. But I would have much preferred that everything had gone smoothly and none of this had ever come to light.

I do think digital is the way of the future. It’s especially true for me, because a lot of my humour is timely and it makes more sense to get it out while the song or the subject matter is fresh, as opposed to waiting until I have 12 songs and then putting out an album. I still like physical media; maybe it’s just because I’m old-school and like having a tangible object I can hold in my hand. But I agree that digital and mp3s and clouds are the way we’re heading. And it will especially behoove me to go in that direction.

That was the intent. As soon as I came up with the idea for the song, I immediately knew what I was going to do for the video in terms of CGI wizardry. And I knew it was probably going to be nightmare fuel for a lot of people. I don’t think there’s a single person on the planet that really wants to see me in a meat dress.

Source: http://www.torontosun.com/2011/07/15/weird-als-gaga-feud-a-short-one

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