Al Yankovic
Al Yankovic
Alfred Matthew "Weird Al" Yankovic is an American singer, songwriter, parodist, record producer, satirist, actor, voice actor, music video director, film producer, and author. He is known for his humorous songs that make light of popular culture and often parody specific songs by contemporary musical acts, original songs that are style pastiches of the work of other acts, and polka medleys of several popular songs, featuring his favored instrument, the accordion...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionComedian
Date of Birth23 October 1959
CountryUnited States of America
I can't get too offended when somebody parodies me.
By the time I'm in the studio recording my parody, 10,000 parodies of that song are on YouTube.
As much as people are griping about the Internet taking sales away from artists, it's been a huge promotional tool for me.
As a kid, I certainly never thought I would get to spend my life doing something fun.
A lot of rap songs don't usually have a lot of melody per se.
It's hard to say, I picked one of my favorite articles for the MAD vault. Which is one of the features of the Magazine so they don't have to actually pay artists or writers to come up with new stuff.
A lot of artists have really been supportive over the years.
I mean, I don't write for kids.
I mean, I hate to gloat, but I'm extremely satisfied with my position in life and the way things have worked out for me.
I was able to come up with a couple articles for the magazine, I was able to solicit help from a bunch of my friends to contribute pieces: Patton Oswalt, Seth Green, Emo Phillips, Chris Hardwick, John Hodgman, and more. It's very much a "Weird Al" themed issue, so I'd like to think that there's a lot of "Weird Al" flavor throughout but I think it'd be generous really to call me an editor.
I think that nerds, if you want to call them that, have only gotten more hip and assimilated into the culture.
The irony is of course that my career has lasted a whole lot longer than some of the people I've parodied over the years.
Some people want to advertise their weirdness, and spread it out, that's not me.
In the '80s, I was the only game in town, I was the only one getting that kind of exposure in any rotation on MTV. Now with internet culture it seems like everyone is doing music parodies. And they're not all good!