Stumbled into this “gift” accidentally while assembling a total Yankovic playlist this afternoon. You can hear :30 teasers for each Straight Outta Lynwood track, so long as you have URGE and WMP11 installed (Windows only). No account necessary. MTV must’ve added his new album at some point in the past day. Do an Artist search for Yankovic (in URGE) and you should see SOL top the list. Select the album tracks as well as another track from another album (like Couch Potato from Poodle Hat), then right-click the non-SOL track and select “Play” from the context menu. This should tide you over until Tuesday morning – which is when you’ll buy the full album:

Featuring parodies of Chamillionaire, Green Day, Usher, R. Kelly and Taylor Hicks! DualDisc includes PCM Stereo, 5.1 Surround and instrumental mixes of the entire album (with on-screen lyrics option), plus a 9-minute behind-the-scenes documentary and 6 BRAND NEW MUSIC VIDEOS!

If you don’t buy the album, I’m going to rip your heart right out of your rib cage with my bare hands and then throw it on the floor and stomp on it ’til you die – especially if you’re white and nerdy.

Free Preview of New Weird Al Album

So, I’m getting ready for a trip to Colorado Springs for my future brother-in-law’s nuptuals. I figured I’d give the Clix a shot with Urge. I fire up the Windows Media Player and… blammo:

“Your Windows Media DRM is Corrupted.” *sigh* I love DRM. It’s awesome. DRM is teh shiz. I want to make love to DRM, it’s so sexy. DRM is the ultimate. Give me more DRM. I want to spread DRM on my toast in the morning. I need DRM in my life.

Windows Media DRM is Corrupted

Don’t count on MP4 playback out of the box in the next version of the Windows Media Player. I filed this “bug” a few months ago, but apparently not supporting MP4 (by default) in WMP11 is a feature: “Spend the money. Pre-install the codec. The PSP relies on it, the iPod relies on it, and Microsoft should have had its hands in one MP4 spec or another. Drop the political bullsh*t and just do it for the sake of your users who don’t know what’s going on.” Their response this morning was simple: “This is currently expected behavior.” Expected behavior? Language barrier. Perhaps Microsoft is hoping that more people install and use iTunes. I’m not sure why? Meanwhile, I’m looking at my iRiver Clix and wondering… why can’t it support the leading video format?

MP4 Support in WMP11