Poodle Hat

1	Couch Potato 4:18
2	Hardware Store 3:44
3	Trash Day 3:12
4	Party at the Leper Colony 3:38
5	Angry White Boy Polka: Last Resort/Chop Suey/Get Free/Hate to Say ... 5:04
6	Wanna B Ur Lovr 6:14
7	A Complicated Song 3:40
8	Why Does This Always Happen to Me? 4:52
9	Ode to a Superhero 4:53
10	Bob 2:29
11	Ebay 3:36
12	Genius in France 8:58

Barnes & Noble

Just when MTV's prettiest faces thought it was safe to play pop music without fear of parody, out pops Weird Al, ready to take on all comers with his twisted purview. Given the tough attitude of today's chart-toppers, Yankovic's got a lot of territory to cover -- and he does a doggone comprehensive job on Poodle Hat. Eminem gets his comeuppance on "Couch Potato," a tale of suburban goober angst and severe TV addiction set to the tune of "Lose Yourself," while -- giving equal attention to the angry young women out there -- Al twists Avril Lavigne's "Complicated" into the goofily tongue-twisting "A Complicated Song." Showing that he's still got a finger on the pulse of the gross-out market, Al drags Nelly's "Hot in Herre" through the muck on "Trash Day" ("It was like, the last day before trash day / My place is gettin' kinda nas-tay") and the non-parodic (but still pretty nasty) "Party at the Leper Colony." Poodle Hat's most dizzying component, however, is the tour de force "Angry White Boy Polka," on which the Weird one unleashes his fiercest accordion fury on a passel of pasty rock songs by Papa Roach, Limp Bizkit, Rage Against the Machine, and the White Stripes. Polka doesn't get more provocative than that, and Al, who's famous for such gut-busters as "Eat It" and "Smells like Nirvana," has rarely sounded funnier. David Sprague

All Music Guide

It's been said that artists will truly know they've entered pop culture when Weird Al Yankovic records a parody of their hit. But what does it mean when pop culture is ahead of Weird Al? Take his parody of the Backstreet Boys' "I Want It That Way," which Yankovic turns into "Ebay," but his satire is not far removed from the auction website's own advertising campaign of 2003, where people rave about the junk they bought on eBay to the tune of "My Way" ("I did it eBay"). What does this mean? Well, that Weird Al Yankovic's sensibility has been so thoroughly assimilated by mass culture that it's tougher than ever for him to stay ahead of the game. For instance, there's his parody of Eminem's "Lose Yourself," for which Marshall Mathers refused to let Alfred Matthew Yankovic make a video -- an event that gave Poodle Hat a lot of press upon its spring 2003 release. The album ends with "Genius in France," a multi-part epic that's equal parts Utopia-era Todd Rundgren, Frank Zappa, and They Might Be Giants; it's the most ambitious and weirdest thing here, which counts for a lot, ending with a Grey Poupon joke. It works because, at his best, Weird Al is a very good musician with some clever ideas and a skilled band, so music that showcases that is best for him -- it helps put his jokes across. Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Entertainment Weekly

Yankovic is one of the few musicians who play with words and pop culture as deftly as Eminem. (B) Evan Serpick