The polka medleys have always been the best part of Weird Al Yankovic’s albums. Basically, in addition to numerous parodies and originals, Yankovic always stitches together a string of pop hits covered as ebullient traditional polka tunes; Here’s a full list for reference. The medley from Yankovic’s new Mandatory Fun is called “NOW That’s What I Call Polka!” It features pop’s leading genius nerd rampaging through polka versions of the following songs:
Miley Cyrus – “Wrecking Ball”
Foster The People – “Pumped Up Kicks”
One Direction – “The Best Song Ever”
Psy – “Gangnam Style”
Carly Rae Jepsen – “Call Me Maybe”
will.i.am – “Scream & Shout” (Feat. Britney Spears)
Gotye – “Somebody That I Used To Know” (Feat. Kimbra)
Pitbull – “Timber” (Feat. Ke$ha)
LMFAO – “Sexy And I Know It”
Macklemore & Ryan Lewis – “Thrift Shop” (Feat. Wanz)
Daft Punk – “Get Lucky”
There’s been a lot of fanfare surrounding the release of Mandatory Fun about how the album format prohibits Yankovic from releasing his parodies in a timely fashion by modern standards, the implication being that he should (and will) switch to independently distributing singles in order to strike while the irony is hot. That concept seems especially true in the case of this medley; some of the songs date back all the way to 2011, and they feel ancient here. Still, the lack of timeliness doesn’t stop “NOW That’s What I Call Polka!” from being anything but a blast. It’s a great gimmick regardless of when the songs came out. Listen below.
Weird Al’s latest and possibly his last album is available at Amazon for only $5.99.