More On Why Atlantic Records Suck
If you’ve been following along, you probably already heard that Atlantic Records executives were the ones who denied the Al parody “You’re Pitiful” from being put on the new album “Straight Outta Lynwood”, thus pushing the release date from June 27th to ultimately September 26th in the United States. But what you probably didn’t hear was WHY they rejected it. Luckily the fine folks down under at The West Australian have uncovered this mystery as well. In their interview, Blunt reply for Weird Al, Al tells his side of the story:
“The reason I heard was that they felt like You’re Beautiful was getting too much attention,” Yankovic, 46, explains from his home in LA. “They don’t want him perceived as a one-hit wonder. They thought You’re Beautiful was getting bigger than he was . . . and that my parody would put more focus on that song.”
Atlantic didn’t immediately put the kybosh on the parody, rather the suits asked Yankovic to wait until the soppy UK singer-songwriter had established himself as an artist. He obliged, for a while, but the album full of timely parodies couldn’t hold for more than a few months.
A frustrated Yankovic pushed the label for a final answer and was eventually told that they didn’t want the song to ever see the light of day.
“At that point I just lost my mind because they had basically pushed back my album and I had no idea what I was going to be doing,” he says. “They basically jerked me around.”
So there you have it. It wasn’t just them saying no and letting Al move on quickly. They strung him along for a while, giving false hopes. Grr… since the execs objects to Al’s parody of Blunt’s hit, they should just be hit with blunt objects.
October 2nd, 2006 at 04:43 pm
well that sucks!!!
October 2nd, 2006 at 04:43 pm
they should be given BLUNT force trauma to the head
October 2nd, 2006 at 05:58 pm
sure!! atlantic records doesn’t want james blunt to be a one hit wonder…but taylor hicks record label doesn’t seem to care
October 2nd, 2006 at 06:00 pm
No wonder Al edited Wikipedia to telling them they suck.
We all had to wait for THEIR stupidity.
Poor Al.
October 2nd, 2006 at 06:07 pm
dont like the song IMO. Dont like the album really so I guess it does not matter.
Oh well,still sucks for Al.
October 2nd, 2006 at 09:19 pm
Als super nice he says he has the best fans in the world does that mean we have the best Al in the world?
October 2nd, 2006 at 10:57 pm
What the heck is imo?????
October 3rd, 2006 at 12:16 am
imo = “in my opinion”
Everybody is certainly entitled to theirs.
October 3rd, 2006 at 09:57 am
don’t like what song????????
if it’s an al song, you certainly aren;t a true fan
October 3rd, 2006 at 04:09 pm
hey, Weird Al is amazing, but some songs are better than others. I agree, it wasn’t his best work, but it still wasn’t that bad.
October 3rd, 2006 at 04:12 pm
you can still be a “true fan” without liking every single song…
October 3rd, 2006 at 04:24 pm
But what songs didn’t you like???????
and this is his best album ever!!!!
October 3rd, 2006 at 05:35 pm
“if it’s an al song, you certainly aren;t a true fan”
That doesn’t mean anything. There are a number of Al songs I don’t love, but I’m a huge fan and own all of his albums, all the DVDs he’s put out, and seem him in concert twice. But I guess I’m not a true fan. But anyways, if Atlantic had let Al put You’re Pitiful on the album, then we wouldn’t have White and Nerdy.
October 3rd, 2006 at 07:45 pm
dude… he said he didn’t like white and nerdy… the BEST SONG EVER, confessions has become another favorite. And Trapped in the Drive-Thru is the new genius in france (too bad i’m the only one i know that can listen to it all the way through). Heck, Pancreas is good. How can you not like this album? It’s basically one of the best now.
October 3rd, 2006 at 09:16 pm
DON’T YOU PEOPLE ACTUALLY READ THESE?????
I LOVE STRAIGHT OUTTA LYNWOOD, WHITE AND NERDY, CONFESSIONS PART III etc, etc, etc
and i can’t think of any all song i don’t like (none on SOL, none on PH, none on RWS…….)
and i can also listen to “genius In Fracne” all the way through
October 9th, 2006 at 01:00 am
i’m going to have to agree with Ryan there - You’re Pitiful was mediocre, but White & Nerdy was pure genius. So technically Atlantic records did us a favour, even if they still suck.