"Weird Al" Yankovic
Alfred Matthew "Weird Al" Yankovic is an American comedy musician, writer, and actor. He is best known for writing and performing comedy songs that often parody specific songs by contemporary musicians. He also performs original songs that are style pastiches of the work of other acts, as well as polka medleys of popular songs, most of which feature his trademark accordion.
Since having one of his comedy songs aired on The Dr. Demento Radio Show in 1976 at age 16, Yankovic has sold more than 12 million albums, recorded more than 150 parodies and original songs, and performed more than 2,000 live shows.
His work has earned him five Grammy Awards and a further eleven nominations, four gold records and six platinum records in the U.S. His first top ten Billboard album and single were both released in 2006, nearly three decades into his career. His fourteenth studio album, Mandatory Fun, became his first number-one album during its debut week.
Yankovic's success has been attributed to his effective use of music videos to further parody pop culture, the songs' original artists, and the original music videos themselves. He has directed some of his own music videos and has also directed music videos for other artists including Ben Folds, Hanson, the Black Crowes, and the Presidents of the United States of America. With the decline of music television and the onset of social media, he used YouTube and other video sites to publish his videos; this strategy helped boost sales of his later albums. He has not released a full album since Mandatory Fun, opting instead for timely releases of singles.
In addition to his music career, Yankovic wrote and starred in the film UHF and the television series The Weird Al Show. He has produced two satirical films about his own life, The Compleat Al and Weird: The Al Yankovic Story. He has acted in several television shows and web series, in addition to starring in Al TV specials on MTV. He has also written two children's books, When I Grow Up and My New Teacher and Me!.
Early life
Alfred Matthew Yankovic was born in Downey, California, on October 23, 1959, the only child of Mary Elizabeth and Nick Yankovic. He was raised in nearby Lynwood, California. His father, who was born in the Strawberry Hill neighborhood of Kansas City, Kansas, was of Slovene and Croatian descent: Nick Yankovic was the son of Matthew Yankovich, who was born in Weidendorf, Austria-Hungary, and Mary Yankovich, also born in Austria-Hungary. Nick Yankovic began living in California after earning two Purple Hearts for his service as a medic during World War II. He believed "the key to success" was "doing for a living whatever makes you happy" and often reminded his son of this philosophy. Yankovic's mother, a stenographer from Kentucky of English and Italian descent, married his father in 1949. She moved to California a decade before Yankovic was born.Yankovic's first accordion lesson, which sparked his interest in music, took place on the day before his seventh birthday. A door-to-door salesman traveling through Lynwood offered his parents a choice of accordion or guitar lessons at a local music school. Yankovic claims that his parents chose the accordion over the guitar because "they figured there should be at least one more accordion-playing Yankovic in the world"; this was in reference to Frankie Yankovic, to whom he is not related. He has also said that they chose the accordion because "they were convinced it would revolutionize rock". Since his mother did not let him outside the house often, he had plenty of time to practice the instrument at home. He continued lessons at the music school for three years before deciding to continue learning on his own.
In the 1970s Yankovic was a big fan of Elton John and cites John's 1973 album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road as one of the reasons he "learned to play rock 'n' roll on the accordion". As for his influences in comedy and parody music, he has listed artists including Stan Freberg, Spike Jones, Tom Lehrer, Allan Sherman, Shel Silverstein, and Frank Zappa, as well as "all the other wonderfully sick and twisted artists" he found through The Dr. Demento Radio Show. Other sources of inspiration for his comedy came from Mad magazine, the British comedy troupe Monty Python, and the Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker films. He had also enjoyed George Carlin's stand-up comedy album FM & AM so much that he transcribed it by typewriter.
Yankovic began kindergarten a year earlier than most children and skipped second grade, later saying, "My classmates seemed to think I was some kind of rocket scientist, so I was labeled a nerd early on." He attended Lynwood High School, where his unusual schooling experience meant he was two years younger than most of his classmates. He was not interested in sports or social events but was active in other extracurricular programs, including: the National Forensic League-sanctioned public speaking events; a play based on Rebel Without a Cause; the yearbook, for which he wrote most of the captions; and the Volcano Worshippers club, which he later said did "absolutely nothing" and was started "just to get an extra picture of in the yearbook". He graduated in 1976, and was valedictorian of his senior class. He attended California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, earning a bachelor's degree in architecture. After graduation he worked at Westwood One, first in the mail room and then calling stations confirming that paid advertisements had indeed run on air.
Career
1976–1981: Dr. Demento and early fame
Yankovic's music received its first on-air exposure via syndicated comedy radio personality Dr. Demento's Southern California–based show, later saying, "If there hadn't been a Dr. Demento, I'd probably have a real job now." Despite his mother having caught him listening to Dr. Demento's program and banning him from listening to it again, he found ways to do it discreetly. In 1976 Dr. Demento spoke at Yankovic's school, where the 16-year-old gave him a homemade cassette tape of original and parody songs on accordion and recorded in Yankovic's bedroom into a "cheesy little tape recorder". The tape's first song, "Belvedere Cruisin' " was played on Demento's radio show, launching Yankovic's career. Demento said, "'Belvedere Cruisin' ' might not have been the very best song I ever heard, but it had some clever lines I put the tape on the air immediately."Yankovic also played at local coffeehouses, accompanied by fellow dorm resident Joel Miller on bongos. He recalled in 2007:
During Yankovic's second year as an architecture student at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, he became a disc jockey at KCPR, the university's radio station. Yankovic had been called "Weird Al" originally as a more derogatory nickname by others in his dormitory, since he was seen as the strange outcast compared to other residents. Though he initially took it as an insult, Yankovic eventually "took it on professionally" as his persona for the station. In 1978 he released his first recording, "Take Me Down", on the LP Slo Grown, as a benefit for the Economic Opportunity Commission of San Luis Obispo County. The song mocked famous nearby landmarks such as Bubblegum Alley and the waterfall toilets at the Madonna Inn.
In mid-1979 shortly before senior year, "My Sharona" by the Knack was on the charts. Yankovic took his accordion into the restroom across the hall from the radio station to take advantage of the echo chamber acoustics and recorded a parody titled "My Bologna". He sent it to Dr. Demento, who played it to good response from listeners. Yankovic met the Knack after a show at his college and introduced himself as the author of "My Bologna". The Knack's lead singer, Doug Fieger, said he liked the song and suggested that Capitol Records vice president Rupert Perry release it as a single. "My Bologna" was released with "School Cafeteria" as its B-side, and the label gave Yankovic a six-month recording contract. Yankovic, who was "only getting average grades" in his architecture degree, began to realize that he might make a career of comedic music.
On September 14, 1980, Yankovic was a guest on The Dr. Demento Show, where he was to record a new parody live. The song was called "Another One Rides the Bus", a parody of Queen's hit "Another One Bites the Dust". While practicing the song outside the sound booth, he met Jon "Bermuda" Schwartz, who told him he was a drummer and agreed to bang on Yankovic's accordion case to help Yankovic keep a steady beat during the song. They rehearsed the song just a few times before the show began. "Another One Rides the Bus" became so popular that Yankovic's first television appearance was a performance of the song on The Tomorrow Show with Tom Snyder on April 21, 1981. On the show, Yankovic played his accordion, and again, Schwartz banged on the accordion case and provided comical sound effects. Yankovic's record label, TK Records, went bankrupt about two weeks after the single was released, so Yankovic received no royalties from its initial release.
1981–1989: Band and fame
In 1981, Yankovic went on tour for the first time as part of Dr. Demento's stage show. His stage act in a Phoenix, Arizona, nightclub caught the eye of manager Jay Levey, who was "blown away". Levey asked Yankovic if he had considered creating a full band and doing his music as a career. Yankovic admitted that he had, so Levey held auditions. Steve Jay became Yankovic's bass player, and Jay's friend Jim West played guitar. Schwartz continued on drums. Yankovic's first show with his new band was on March 31, 1982. Several days later, Yankovic and his band were the opening act for Missing Persons.Yankovic recorded "I Love Rocky Road", which was produced by Rick Derringer, in 1982. The song was a hit on Top 40 radio, leading to Yankovic's signing with Scotti Brothers Records. In 1983, Yankovic's first self-titled album was released on Scotti Bros. The song "Ricky" was released as a single and the music video received exposure on the still-young MTV. "Ricky" broke the top 100 videos on MTV at the time, which Yankovic took as a sign that his career was in music, quitting his job as a mailroom clerk at the local offices of Westwood One to pursue the music career.
Yankovic released his second album "Weird Al" Yankovic in 3-D in 1984. The first single "Eat It", a parody of the Michael Jackson song "Beat It", became popular, thanks in part to the music video, a shot-for-shot parody of Jackson's "Beat It" music video, and what Yankovic sarcastically described as his "uncanny resemblance" to Jackson. Yankovic said he felt he had become an overnight success once the video for "Eat It" aired on MTV, as both the song and video, as well as Jackson's approval for the parody, drew attention to him from other musicians and made it easier for him to obtain permissions to use others' songs. "Eat It" was also aided by the first of Yankovic's Al TV specials that aired on MTV on April 1, 1984, the network looking to Yankovic's rising popularity to help fill its programming time. Peaking at No. 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 on April 14, 1984, "Eat It" remained Yankovic's highest-charting single until "White & Nerdy" placed at No. 9 in October 2006. In Canada, "Eat It" reached No. 5.
In 1985, Yankovic co-wrote and starred in a mockumentary of his own life titled The Compleat Al, which intertwined the facts of his life up to that point with fiction. The film also featured some clips from Yankovic's trip to Japan and some clips from the Al TV specials. The Compleat Al was co-directed by Jay Levey, who would direct UHF four years later. Also released around the same time as The Compleat Al was The Authorized Al, a biographical book based on the film. The book, resembling a scrapbook, included real and fictional humorous photographs and documents.
Yankovic and his band toured as the opening act for the Monkees in mid-1987 for their second reunion tour of North America. Yankovic claims to have enjoyed touring with the Monkees, even though he said that the promoter cheated them out of "a bunch of money".
In 1988, Yankovic was the narrator on the Wendy Carlos recording of Sergei Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf. The album also included a sequel to Camille Saint-Saëns's composition The Carnival of the Animals, titled "The Carnival of the Animals Part II", with Yankovic providing humorous poems for each of the featured creatures in the style of Ogden Nash, who had written humorous poems for the original.
That year, Yankovic made his theatrical film debut with a cameo appearance in the film Tapeheads, starring as himself. This was followed by a cameo appearance in The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!, also in 1988.
Yankovic's success led to a deal to make his film UHF, which premiered in July 1989. While the film has since become a cult title, its initial release was against mediocre reviews, and it was up against several other summer blockbusters, including Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Ghostbusters II, Batman, and Licence to Kill. While Yankovic released an associated soundtrack album, UHF – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack and Other Stuff, it was not as successful as his previous albums. Yankovic fell into a slump over the next three years as a result of the poor performance of the film.