See Weird Al Yankovic at Madison Square Garden on Saturday, July 12th, 2025!
Very few musicians can make a career out of comedic parodies, but there is only one legend who does it best, none other than Weird Al Yankovic. His signature quirky style, often incorporating his accordion, has led to a career that has made billions of people smile. Al’s father Nick, who had earned two Purple Hearts during World War II, had instilled the belief that “the key to success was doing for a living whatever makes you happy”, something that Al has shown by his devotion to music mixed with comedy. His love for music was started when a door-to-door salesman offered accordion lessons at a music school. From day one his interest grew and in the 70’s he was inspired by Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (1973) to take his talents on the accordion and transfer that into using it for rock ‘n roll. The third and biggest element that made Weird Al Yankovic who he is today was Dr. Demento’s radio show that consisted of comedic and odd recordings. After listening while younger, at the age of 16 Al was able to get Dr. Demento a cassette tape of some of his songs, one of which, “Belvedere Cruisin’”, caught his attention and was almost immediately put on the air. From there, his career truly began. In 1979 he recorded a parody of the Knack’s “My Sharona”, aptly titled “My Bologna”, which received immediate airplay from Dr. Demento. The track was so well received that even Doug Fieger from the Knack enjoyed it to the point of getting Capitol Records to release it as a single. The success of “My Bologna” truly kicked off the career of Weird Al, with the parody “Another One Rides the Bus” being recorded live on the Dr. Demento Show and landing him in TV appearances. In 1981 Yankovic went on his first tour, which led to him forming a band around his performances to add more depth to the show. He would release one more parody single in “I Love Rocky Road” in 1982 before releasing his debut self-titled album in 1983. The album featured his previous singles, as well as a handful of new original tracks and parodies including “Ricky”, based off of Toni Basil’s “Mickey”. The success of the video for “Ricky” on MTV was the big sign for Al that his true calling was music. Weird Al Yankovic released his second album, “Weird Al” Yankovic in 3-D in 1984, from which the first single “Eat It”, a parody of “Beat It”, would becoming one of Al’s biggest hits, with the single peaking at number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The track gaining approval from Michael Jackson and the shot-for-shot parody of the music video helped draw attention to Al’s work, allowing him to get approved for more and more parodies. Despite having just two albums, no matter how successful they were, in 1985 Yankovic created a mockumentary about his life titled The Compleat Al, which in true Weird Al fashion was a parody of the Beatles documentary the Compleat Beatles. Accompanying the film was a semi-fictional biographical book titled The Authorized Al that was designed like a scrapbook with a mix of real and fake pictures, stories, and documents. In 1989, Al would write and star in the film UHF, which failed at the box office due to mediocre reviews as well as summer blockbusters in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), Ghostbusters II (1989), and Batman (1989) all being in theaters at the same time as UHF. While UHF would go on to become a cult classic, its initial failure upon release led Yankovic to pull back, taking time to work on his follow up album Off the Deep End which would be released in1992. The album contained the lead single “Smells Like Nirvana” which would become his second top 40 hit in the US. His next few albums did extremely well, with each album containing at least one big song for Yankovic, with Alapalooza (1993) containing “Jurassic Park”, Bad Hair Day (1996) containing “Amish Paradise”, Running with Scissors (1999) containing “The Saga Begins”, and Poodle Hat (2003) containing “eBay”. In 2006, Weird Al Yankovic would release Straight Outta Lynwood which contained his first top ten single “White & Nerdy” as well as “Canadian Idiot” that charted on the Hot 100 chart. The album itself reached number 10 on the Billboard 200 and ended up certified platinum by the RIAA. At this point in his career, thanks to the shift in popularity from physical to digital releases, Yankovic began to release singles digitally without a pending physical album, allowing him to, as he said, “get them out on the internet almost immediately”. His most recent, and most likely final, album was Mandary Fun in 2014 which was a complete hit with critics and listeners alike. It was Yankovic’s first number 1 album, topping the charts in its first week. The song “Word Crimes” became his fourth Top 40, and made him just the third artist to have at least one Top 40 single every decade since the 80’s. With the release of Mandatory Fun his recording contract was up, leading him to decide to stick to singles and EPs over the internet rather than dealing with full-on albums. The immediacy of the switch allows him to release parodies days after inspiration strikes and get them out while the original is still a relevant hit. Since making that change, Weird Al Yankovic hasn’t done much in terms of releasing new music aside from a handful of singles and his polka medleys. Instead, he was focusing more on touring as well as creating Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, a parody biopic. Now, he’s coming around on tour once again, bringing his brand of zany to stages near you!Get The WDHA Setlist Newsletter Delivered To Your Inbox
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