Bandwagon

It seems like for years artists have been making parody’s of each others work.  Weird Al seemed to make parody’s popular, and now there has been a slightly different bend on parody music. This trend has been steadily growing with radio play the last couple of years. Parody’s of rap and hip hops songs.

The songs that are usually chosen are pretty rough, talking about drugs, sex and money. The people who sing them, however, are the opposite of the these rap artists: white and somewhat nerdy. There are quite a few examples, including Ben Fold’s version of Bitches An’t Shit:

Here is an example of the original:

And here is an example of the parody by Dr. Dre:

What’s interesting about these parody’s are sometimes the parody gets to be more popular than the original — however, I would say that the play of the parody would increase the play of the original. Yet there are examples of parody’s sued for libel. It’s an another interesting example in our society. We enjoy the parody’s because they’re funny, but are they hurtful? Or at the very least, could someone take offense that we don’t take their artist work seriously?

It seems that most people don’t mind, because Saturday Night Live is still as popular as it always was.

More Parody Examples:

Original: Boyz N Tha Hood by Eazy-E
Parody: Boyz N Tha Hood by Dynamite Hack