Customer Reviews

Greatest Hits 2

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If my wife were to tell me that on the next cross country trip I could only take one "Weird Al" Yankovic album my choice would be between "Running with Scissors" and Volume 2 of his "Greatest Hits." We get two more tracks this time around and while I am sure every single one of us would like to replace several of tracks with what we would consider better choices (I always skipped "Achy Breaky Song," just like I did the original), that is always going to be true with any "Weird Al" hits collection. But on the plus side "Smells Like Nirvana" is a recognizable classic, "You Don't Love Me Anymore" is the best original composition Yankovic ever wrote, and "Polka Your Eyes Out" is as great a polka medley as exists in the canon of Western music. The other parodies cover the current spectrum of American music. Yes, "Weird Al" does not take on the gloved one or the Material Girl this time around, but anybody that can rewrite the lyrics to songs by both the Kinks and the Red Hot Chili Peppers is a master of the form for my money. Besides, on this one I knew all of the originals and my kids were stumped by "Jurassic Park" (although how do you really make fun out of a song about leaving a cake out in the rain?). I know it is really not fair to complain that these "Weird Al" hits collections are better than his albums (who is that NOT true for?), but there are just so many people who skip the regular albums and wait for the next hits collection to come down the road. I would think that Volume 3 should be out before the next Star Wars movie.

There's really no point buying this album if you are planning on buying all of Weird Al" Yankovic's individual ones as there is only one track found here that you find elsewhere. That track is Headline News which is a parody of Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm by the Crash Test Dummies. It is about the three major news stories around the time this album was released which are Tonya Harding paying some guy to break the leg of her better rival. Some American kid vandalising Singapore with spray paint then complaining when he gets hit with the cane like locals do, and the guy who raped his wife and she cuts of his manhood. Headline News is an extremely funny song but I don't know if I would buy a whole album of repeats just to hear it.

If you are however trying to convert others to the wonderful world of "Weird Al" who have maybe been living in a cave somewhere for the past two decades and haven't heard of the great one "Weird Al" (you'd be surprised these people do exist) then this is an excellent album to give as a present. It has all the great songs from Off The Deep End and other albums released before the Bad Hair Day album. Yoda is the only song from older albums probably left off the original greatest hits for legal or monetary reasons I guess.

It's an extremely funny album and does have a slightly different version of UHF than in the movie or on the UHF and Other Stuff album. If you're strapped for cash buy this one but if not and I can guarantee once you listen to this you will anyway buy all of "Weird Al's" albums.

You may also consider purchasing this is backpacking through Europe or somewhere and do not want to carry around all of "Weird Al's" albums.

This is exactly what I was looking for. I have the Weird Al Ultimate Video Collection and after watching most of the videos, I instantly knew that I must have "Headline News," "Smells Like Nirvana," "UHF" and "Christmas at Ground Zero" on cd! This has all of them AND MORE!!! So don't spend tons of cash on the other albums when you can have almost all of the best from the early ninetys right here on one disc. BUY IT NOW!!!!!!!!!!

I find this CD to be one of the best I have ever seen. You can only find "Headline News" on this album. All of the songs are kind of catchy and you can memorize the lyrics in about 2 trips through the CD. Great CD because it has songs on it that really you never heard on the radio but you can't stop them from invading your mind and singing a song every once in a while. As the title says this is Weird Al Yankovic's Greatest Hits.

This one is just as funny as his other releases. You will never be able to listen to the original songs again without laughing. Al can get all the little background noises that are in the originals and often sound a lot like the original singers too.

HILARIOUS! Sample a few of the songs before purchasing. (I believe [Amazon.com] lets customers do that.) You will be hooked! Even my teenage son gets a charge out of ALL the songs.

Like the previous collection, Weird Al's Greatest Hits volume 1 (from 1980-1988), volume 2 is another histarical collection of the weird one's parodies from 1989-1994. The album has a newly recorded parody on it called Headline News, a parody of the acoustic, Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm by the Crash Test Dummies. This collection also includes Achey Breaky song, a parody that says what a terrible song Achey Beaky Heart is, and also Jarassic Park, a parody that talks about the book/movie. Then theres Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit parodied, Smells Like Nirvana. A song that makes fun of how no one can understand what Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain is saying in his songs. Among the songs this album, one of my favorites is UHF, a classic Al original that he wrote for his very own major motion picture also by that same name.... ...

Not all of these are true classics as in the 1st Greatest Hits, but they are all great songs anyway. A great buy.

Like a Harley Motorcycle, if I need to explain Weird Al, you'll never understand.

He spares no gendre, and levies parody and satire with harmony and rhythm on all targets of opportunity.

Since I dislike some of the things he "re-invents", some results are disinteresting to me. Overall, I consider him money and time well spent.

Mock on!

1.) Mozart 2.) Ludwig van 3.) Miles Davis 4.) Al

If there is any doubt, listen to the Bel canto brillance of "Headline News." You will immediately recognize the man's diatonic genius at full spectrum. Al rocks

I really enjoy this compilation. It has a couple more tracks than the first Greatest Hits CD, and it plays for considerably longer --- although you can't really have it without the first, in my opinion. Taken together, these two CDs serve as great overview of Al's career from his very first days to the mid-'90s. I personally found the 2-CD Essential collection, which came out much later than the Greatest Hits CDs, to be disappointing, and it included 38 tracks overall! Altogether, the two Greatest Hits CDs only have 22 songs, but I don't consider even one of them to be a waste of space on the discs. Sure, the CDs are each sold separately, and they don't include any of Al's recordings from '96 onward, but they're still better than the so-called "essential" collection, at least if you look at them as a single entity rather than two separate collections. (In fact, you could burn them onto a single disc, but you'd have to sacrifice a song or two.)