When parodying runs dry, perhaps you should check certain facts.
This page discusses the two types of ratings I give songs - stars, which measures how much I like to casually listen to the song, and fodder, which measures how much I would like to parody the song. The difference between the two must always be emphasized, but it is interesting to see if there is any subtle correlation between the two.
The era of my eventually publishable parodies began with my friends and I getting to know Styx better, going off of their hits. Sometimes getting the hits meant just buying one song, other times it involved getting the whole album.
After finding out what I could do with the whole albums, I started to wonder what I was missing with the other albums. Of course, they brought me casual listening pleasure as well. Most of the time, at least. Although there was the strangest appearance of a pipe organ in I’m O.K., which I could have done without. After this, it became apparent that Styx II might also feature a song like that, which it did. Still, I went for that album anyway.
So, even at this early date, I was realizing that I should not let myself be deterred so easily, except in cases where I clearly should. Perhaps that was one of the reasons that was a major turning point for the parodying.
Sometimes the fodder and stars can go opposite ways. That seemed to be so the first time I let the antagonist tell his side of the story, turning to the Green Day album Insomniac and picking Geek Stink Breath, Panic Song, and Brain Stew, even though Geek Stink Breath and Brain Stew were my least favorite songs on the album, simply for being a bit on the noisy punk side.
Interestingly, though, it is not always this way. Come to consider what my friends and I think of the Green Day albums from a casual listening perspective.
On the one hand, Dookie could be considered to be the lowest of the Green Day albums we were interested in buying, as we only listened to the middle of the album. We do not remember why, however. Also, the songs we enjoyed, we really enjoyed.
On the other hand, 21st Century Breakdown had issues we would not soon forget. It got a certain amount of infamy among us for the inclusion of two songs we thought were terrible, Restless Heart Syndrome and Horseshoes and Hand Grenades, which in fact are sometimes the first thing one of my friends thinks of when the album is mentioned.
The question then is, why those? Maybe the good songs were not as memorable. It is true that the words left something to be desired - and I am not talking from a parody perspective here, although they certainly leave a lot to be desired in that department. It is supposed to be a concept album, but it does not all add up. In fact, within an individual song, I am not always even sure what one line has to do with the next.
Take, for instance, The Static Age. Well this is how the west was won,
it says, but did that not happen long before static meant anything to people? And that came right after saying it was a static age, which is not even a thing. . . No nicer way to say it, I am afraid, but I honestly do not know what he who wrote and sang the album was thinking - or drinking. Love the tune, but the song in question does sort of just have three-star lyrics.
So, for these reasons, 21st Century Breakdown may in fact be our least favorite of the Green Day albums we have. Better than the albums we skipped, certainly, but not very special to any of us either. There were no 5-star songs on here for me. It sounds like Green Day, and has the same quality singing voice they have always had in the lead, but it lacks what makes other Green Day albums much more relevant to me than most music artists.
All in all, this may subtly contribute to why I had no interest in parodying this one. But only subtly, I insist.