Polka Party (CD)

• Category:  Music  »  Comedy  »  Music Comedy
• Format: CD   Learn more about the CD format using Tower WIKI.
• Release Date: March 12, 1991
• Label: Volcano 3
• UPC: 614223200620
• WAPI (Tower ID): 106451101
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Personnel: Weird Al Yankovic (vocals, accordion, keyboards, glockenspiel, background vocals); Jimmy West (guitar, background vocals); Rick Derringer (guitar); Steve Jay (banjo, bass guitar, background vocals); Dennis Fetchet (fiddle); Joel Peskin (clarinet); Bill Anderson (tenor saxophone); Gary Herbig (baritone saxophone); Warren Luening (trumpet); Tommy Johnson (tuba); Sonny Burke (piano); Pat Regan (synthesizer); James Cox (guitar synthesizer); Jon "Bermuda" Schwartz (drums, percussion); Lisa Popiel, The Waters Sisters (background vocals).

Just about anyone could feel let down by this album, especially since the cover is so funny and seems to suggest that an entire album of polka is in the works. That would have been great. The front cover shows Weird Al Yankovic, clad in lederhosen, performing for a bunch of enthusiastic punkers. Now anyone that has spent time with a punk audience in the mid-'80s would probably agree that if a really great polka act came onstage and played, the punk crowd would probably go wild. That's because polka is a rich musical tradition; good polka music is timeless. A really good parody is the same way, but what about a parody of a hit song that is so insubstantial that it is completely forgotten 15 years later? That's the big problem with this set. The only really great track is, predictably, the knock-down, drag-out polka medley which is the only place on earth where one can hear "Venus," "Sledgehammer," "Sussudio," "Shout," and other claptrap played on the accordion in rapid succession. Good thing, too. Actually, it is something of a masterpiece, Yankovic's band attacking each turn of the arrangement with manic intensity. It is really too bad nothing else here is really worth listening to. "Addicted to Spuds"? Not really a good enough song to parody, and if it was, yet another devotional tract dedicated to some form of food was getting a little bit old by now. "Living in America" in its original version has all the overblown grandeur needed to make a good parody target, but "Living With a Hernia" just isn't funny. The originals are horrid as usual. "Christmas at Ground Zero" may seem a trifle more substantial than Yankovic's usual songwriting, but this type of material has been done much better by Jello Biafra and the Dead Kennedys. Yankovic took something of a recording break after this flop, and he sure needed it. ~ Eugene Chadbourne

Continuing the attempt to take advantage of his mid-'80s success, Weird Al Yankovic released Polka Party not even a full year after Dare to be Stupid. The album is rushed, and it shows; many of its parodies, such as "Living With a Hernia" and "Toothless People," are based on songs that are far cries from such cultural anthems as "Beat It" or "Like a Virgin"; thus, one cannot expect the parodies to be any more memorable. Yankovic's original songs included here are also rather sloppily written and uninteresting, with the possible exceptions of "Christmas at Ground Zero" and "Good Enough For Now." Polka Party was Yankovic's most mediocre record of the '80s, and it apparently didn't fool anyone -- the album barely broke into the Billboard Top 200. ~ Barry Weber

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