Weird Al Yankovic Rejected AI Commercial Despite Big Money Offer
variety.com
Weird Al Yankovic revealed he was offered “a nice pile of money” to appear in a commercial but backed out after realizing it would involve AI.

Ahead of a Syracuse, New York, stop on his “Bigger & Weirder” tour, Yankovic revealed to Syracuse.com in an interview published this week that he was offered “a nice pile of money” to appear in a commercial for business-focused software, but he backed out once he realized the ad would involve AI. “I’m not a fan of AI,” he said.

    • Kühlschrank@lemmy.world
      58·
      2 days ago

      The story of Amish Paradise is great! Fom the wiki:

      Yankovic sought permission from Coolio before making “Amish Paradise”, offering a percentage of the revenues. Yankovic was given rights to use the song by the record company (non-exclusive rights holders) and producer Doug Rasheed, but not by Coolio himself, who declined when presented with Weird Al’s offer and subsequently decried the release.[2][3][4][5]

      Yankovic later stated on VH1’s Behind the Music that he had written a sincere letter of apology to Coolio, which was never returned, and that Coolio never complained when he received his royalty check from proceeds of the song. A series of photos taken at the XM Satellite Radio booth at the 2006 Consumer Electronics Show suggests that Yankovic and Coolio had made amends.[6] In a 2014 interview, Coolio stated that the decision to refuse the parody at the time was “stupid” and he wished that someone on his management had stopped him, and then considered the final parody to be “funny”.[7]

      • nocturne@slrpnk.netOP
        52·
        2 days ago

        The story behind Perform This Way is also great:

        In April 2011, Yankovic reported that Lady Gaga refused him permission to release “Perform This Way”, which he had hoped to use as the lead single for his upcoming album. Yankovic had originally sent the request to parody the song to Gaga’s manager, who responded that they would need to see his lyrics to make an assessment. Yankovic was touring in Australia at the time, and hastily created the lyrics for approval.[7] Yankovic further stated that Gaga’s management insisted on reviewing a recorded version of the song, and he had cut a family vacation short to turn the recorded version around.[7] Ultimately, he was told that she refused to allow the parody.[8] Yankovic had considered the song key to his Alpocalypse album, but due to the rejection, he had begun the process to postpone its release until he could record a new song to take the place of “Perform This Way”.[9]

        Following the refusal, he released his parody online on April 20, 2011, and encouraged donations to the Human Rights Campaign. Yankovic was initially fearful of parodying Gaga’s song, considering it “an important gay-rights anthem”, but had hit upon making the parody about Gaga’s fashion, and tying in the sales of the song and video to charity as an act of “good karma” due to the human rights message of the original song.[6][7]

        Shortly after its upload to YouTube, word about the song spread among Yankovic’s fans, primarily along Twitter, according to Yankovic,[9] and the video had received over 2 million views.[7] The word spread to Lady Gaga and her staff, and eventually it was discovered she herself had not yet heard the song and the refusal had come from Gaga’s manager without her input.[10][11] As Lady Gaga is “a huge Weird Al fan”,[12] she subsequently gave Yankovic the green light to include the song on his upcoming album and said she loved the parody.[13][14] Lady Gaga later considered being parodied by Yankovic as a “rite of passage” for her musical career and considered the song “very empowering”.[15] Within a day of receiving permission to use the parody, Yankovic had reaffirmed the song’s inclusion on Alpocalypse and was able to set the day of release for the album; Yankovic claimed that “Twitter saved my album”.[9] Regardless of Gaga’s permission, Yankovic will still contribute sales of the song to charity.[9]

      • drcobaltjedi@programming.dev
        43·
        2 days ago

        Meanwhile Chamillionaire loved the parody of his “Ridin” (White & nerdy) so much he put it on his MySpace page and thanked Weird Al when he won a Grammy.

        Also, Lady Gaga had no idea she was getting a Weird Al parody because her manager didn’t communicate with her and was a dick to Al.

        • grue@lemmy.world
          32·
          2 days ago

          Michael Jackson and Kurt Cobain were happy enough to let Al use the original sets for the music videos of their parodies.

          • DevDave@piefed.socialEnglish
            4·
            2 days ago

            Super paraphrasing because my memory sucks.

            During an interview Weird Al mentioned briefly talking with Kurt Cobain and saying one of the reasons for the parody was because no one knew what Kurt was saying.

            • grue@lemmy.world
              10·
              2 days ago

              Kurt wasn’t sure about allowing the parody because he was worried it would be about food, but when Al reassured him it was about how Nirvana’s lyrics were unintelligible he laughed and allowed it.

      • Etterra@discuss.onlineEnglish
        21·
        2 days ago

        As I understand it, lots of musicians consider it an honor to have Weird Al approach them for a parody. He’s respectful, appreciates creativity, and up front about everything he does. IIRC Lady Gaga was thrilled when approached. And the man is seriously talented; he can reproduce songs by ear, which is incredible, and if I believe me actually wrote The Saga Begins before the movie was actually in theaters, based entirely off of trailers and stuff. Which that’s true that’s fucking incredible.

        • PwnTra1n@lemmy.worldEnglish
          11·
          2 days ago

          Only really Prince ever constantly denied Al a parody. Some have denied for specific songs, even Micheal Jackson denied Al at one point. Even Coolio came around in the end. He said he was too full of himself but eventually thought “Micheal didn’t care and he’s the king of pop. Who am I to be mad.” It’s only ever a sense of how serious they think the message is.