"Weird Al" Yankovic - Running With Scissors

(BMG)

**


The, er, accordion-playing king of pop parody is still with this. These days minus the moustache, he looks like a cross between Jon Lithgow and Havoc.

However, he sounds like the same old goofball, his authorised mild-mannered take-offs include setting The Phantom Menace to the tune of American Pie (enough story for five verses apparently), doing a polka medley which stretches from the Spice Girls to Marilyn Manson, while titles like Pretty Fly for a Rabbi show the punchlines in Yankovic's antiquated schtick.

As for trying to set Jerry Springer to music on a track of the same name...well parodying something so self-parodying is misguided enough; doing it as a song is excruciating.