00:06Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we'll be counting down our picks for those musical pastiches or parodies where the inspirational
00:13source might feel a little arcane.
00:15We'll only be including artists that aren't specifically known for parody, so sorry, no weird owl for this list.
00:28Number 10, The Bad Touch, The Bloodhound Gang.
00:32It's honestly a little difficult to differentiate the parodic elements behind the Bloodhound Gang's bad touch.
00:37This is thanks largely to the video clip that accompanied the song, a viral sensation before that term had even
00:43taken hold within the public consciousness.
00:53This undeniably silly song was designed not only to mock self-important Europop dance music, but also to intentionally bait
01:00critics with a visual aesthetic that reveled in, well, let's go with monkey business.
01:12The Bloodhound Gang was always a band that held humor in high regard, but The Bad Touch basically became the
01:17same sort of one-hit wonder
01:19that it was skewering in the first place.
01:27Number 9, Fourth Time Around, Bob Dylan.
01:31What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
01:33This might be what folk icon Bob Dylan was musing to himself after finishing his work on Fourth Time Around
01:38back in 1966.
01:46The tune was composed as something of a clapback track, only decades prior to when that term would take hold
01:51within the social media zeitgeist.
01:53Dylan was basically telling the Beatles,
01:54Hey, I saw what you did with Norwegian wood, this bird has flown, but I do it better.
02:06The Fab Four seemed to knowingly pull a Dylan with regards to their own experiments with folk rock,
02:11so it only seemed right that the man himself would show Liverpool's finest what's up.
02:26Number 8, The Fox.
02:28What does the fox say?
02:30Ilvis.
02:30The members behind Norway's Ilvis weren't really musicians, but comedians.
02:35The resulting single, The Fox, What Does the Fox Say?
02:38was deliberately composed by Bord and Veigar Ilvis Aker as a pop chart tax write-off,
02:43a song they surmised would fail, based upon its parroting nature.
02:46But there's one sound that no one knows.
02:51What does the fox say?
02:53The Ilvis Aker siblings ultimately proved themselves wrong in the best way possible.
02:58The Fox, What Does the Fox Say?, achieved EDM hit status by doing all of the tricks those earworm EDM
03:03tracks do best.
03:04yeah-est-
03:05Jed-d-jed-Jed-Jed-Jed-Jed-Jed-Jed-Jed-Jed-Jed-Jed-Jow!
03:11What's the fox say?!
03:12Ilvis have released other tunes that have done well in the duos' native Norway,
03:15but it remains to be seen if their fox has anything else to say on the pop charts.
03:27Number 6, Hook.
03:29Blues Traveler.
03:30Somehow, we don't really feel that John Popper and Blues Traveler feel too bad about how their knowingly self-aware
03:36parody of the music industry, Hook, became their biggest musical calling card.
03:46The group was probably just as happy jamming and writing the music they wanted to write, despite how Hook brought
03:51chart success to their proverbial front door.
03:53This song was a hit, because it possessed its titular Hook, an immediacy that brought a lot of fans to
03:59the Blues Traveler fold.
04:05Did all of those same fans stick around? Maybe, or maybe not.
04:09Blues Traveler seemed content that the lyrics of Hook felt like a self-fulfilling prophecy.
04:23It's interesting how certain artists react to critical appraisal of their work.
04:27The Blues and Folk influences behind the music of Jethro Tull have never really gone away,
04:32but this also hasn't stopped the progressive rock tag from being slapped on them by fans and magazine journalists.
04:47Thick as a Brick was Jethro Tull's response to those accusations,
04:50a deliberately deep-sounding concept album that was mocking Tull's prog contemporaries from the 1970s.
05:01The thing was, Thick as a Brick was also a pretty darn good prog album in its own right,
05:09and resulted in Tull continuing down this musical path, with albums like A Passion Play and Heavy Horses.
05:24The lion's share of Blur's music does not sound like the group's biggest hit, Song 2.
05:29That's because this usually melodic Britpop act decided to intentionally skewer popular grunge rock tropes of the day via this
05:36in-and-out riff attack.
05:39When I feel heavy metal, woo-hoo!
05:42When I feel that I'm metal, woo-hoo!
05:45Frontman Damon Albarn's joyous woo-hoos are intentionally juxtaposed against lyrics about feeling heavy metal,
05:52and there's even some sly musical jabs within the guitar work.
05:55Take the undistorted beginning section that leads into Song 2's fuzzed-out main riff.
05:59Sound familiar?
06:06The fact that Blur couldn't even be bothered to give the song a proper title speaks volumes to the breadth
06:11of their satirical wit.
06:13And you know what?
06:14It's kind of genius.
06:25One of the dangers of parody is that not everybody is going to be in on the joke.
06:30Valley Girl by Frank Zappa, for example, was intended to poke fun at a Southern California culture that Zappa found
06:36vapid and insufferable.
06:37Okay, fine, we should, we should, we should, we should.
06:41It's really sad.
06:43Valley Girl.
06:44The thing was, this musical collaboration between Zappa and his daughter Moon Unit became a hit,
06:50and caused Valley Girl Speak to become even more popular nationwide than it already was in California.
06:56She like makes me do the dishes and clean the cat box.
07:01Valley Girl.
07:02Then again, maybe this madcap musical genius could find the humor in it all,
07:06since Frank Zappa was also the sort of musician who could expertly skewer muscular arena rock arrangements with 1979's Why
07:14Does It Hurt When I Pee.
07:22Number 3.
07:23Back in the USSR.
07:25The Beatles.
07:26There are a lot of layers behind the periodic elements of Back in the USSR by the Beatles.
07:30For starters, there's the reaction of songwriters John Lennon and Paul McCartney
07:34against the patriotic I'm Backing Britain campaign of the late 60s.
07:38I'm back in the USSR.
07:41You don't know how lucky you are, boy.
07:44There's also a bit of homage slash parody towards two of the Fab Four's influences,
07:49Chuck Berry and the Beach Boys.
07:51I wish they all could be California girls.
07:58Back in the USSR is composed with the Beach Boys' bright and sunny style,
08:02complete with vocal harmonies.
08:04Meanwhile, the lyrics swap out the pro-American words from Berry
08:08in favor of lyrics that play a bit on then-popular spy tropes and gags.
08:12Yeah, yeah, yeah.
08:15Anything you want, they got it right here in the USA.
08:20Number 2.
08:21You gotta fight for your right to party.
08:23Beastie Boys.
08:25This one's tough.
08:26With a lot of back and forth conjecture online attempting to discern
08:29how many levels of parody the Beastie Boys were dropping back on 1986's
08:33You Gotta Fight for Your Right to Party.
08:35Kick it!
08:42The License to Ill album, from which this song is taken,
08:46features a lot of similarly-themed irreverence,
08:48while the Beastie's public profile around this time
08:51seemed to back up this youthful edginess.
08:53On the other hand, members of the group have consistently gone out of their way
08:56to remind fans of how You Gotta Fight for Your Right to Party
08:59started its life as a parody of frat slash jock life of the 1980s.
09:04You gotta fight!
09:06For Your Right to Party!
09:11If that's true though, then maybe the Beastie's career during this time
09:13was a case of life-imitating art.
09:15No, no, I'm sweet!
09:18It's your birthday!
09:19I'm sweet!
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09:36Number 1
09:37Gundam Style
09:38Psy
09:39Music may be a universal language,
09:41but how many of the millions of people that have streamed Psy's Gundam Style
09:45do you think are cognizant of its lyrical themes?
09:55Granted, the fact that Gundam Style is performed in Korean
09:57probably inhibited a lot of people from delving into its deeper meaning,
10:01which speaks to elitism and materialistic tendencies within South Korean culture.
10:13It was probably enough for the rest of Psy's listeners to watch the video,
10:17do the accompanying dance, and sing the
10:19Hey, Sexy Ladies part of the tune.
10:29What song to you serves as a perfect example of parody?
10:33Let us know in the comments.
10:34We'll see you next time.
10:37We'll see you next time.
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