weird al in 1992, correctly predicting 2023 https://t.co/PaxSOEE1T5
— Gerry Doyle (@mgerrydoyle) June 7, 2023
From Variety, ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic on Outlasting the Stars He Parodies, Why He’s Not Making New Music and the Truth About His Torrid Affair With Madonna :
… This is a guy who has now spent five decades in the limelight — far longer than many of the artists he has parodied over the years. “Nobody wanted to sign me in the early ‘80s,” he says. “They thought, ‘comedy music, you’re a novelty artist.’ And historically, novelty artists become one-hit wonders, and then they’re forgotten quickly. So yeah, that’s kind of the big irony of my life is, I’m still here.”…
Yankovic has earned five Grammy awards and sold more than 12 million albums. Some of that is in “Weird,” which he wrote with Eric Appel. But make no mistake, this is by no means an actual biopic. Of course the master of parody would ultimately make a parody of biopics: Despite what you see on screen, Weird Al didn’t have a torrid love affair with Madonna (played by Evan Rachel Wood). He didn’t become a drug kingpin. And Dr. Demento (played by Rainn Wilson) never laced Al’s guacamole with LSD…
Weird Al famously always got permission from artists before parodying their songs — which is why he never got to do his take on anything from Prince’s catalog. But when it came to the movie, “our lawyers said, ‘don’t worry about it.’ Public figure.”
Apparently, a number of viewers who have taken “Weird” as a true chronicle of his life, despite the sheer absurdity of where the story ends up going. “I’ve learned about the Internet and the general population, no matter how ironic and obviously insincere you’re being, somebody’s going to believe it,” he chuckles…
A few other tidbits from our chat with Weird Al:
= Don’t expect a new album anytime soon. “I signed a record deal in 1982 for 10 albums, and then I renegotiated twice, and it became a 14-album contract, which I finally fulfilled in 2014,” he says. “I just don’t want to sign under the contract. I like being a free agent and doing whatever I need to do or want to do. I’m more into one-off stuff now. Because when you do an album, if you’re doing my kind of material, it’s hard to have 12 songs ready to go all at once and have them all be topical and timely. I like having the freedom of being able to just put out material whenever I feel like it. Granted, I haven’t done a lot of that since 2014.”
= Weird Al knows there are petitions to get him to perform the Super Bowl halftime show. But he doesn’t think he’ll ever be on the NFL shortlist. “I’m just being real here. I just don’t see it ever happening. Maybe the Foo Fighters will do it and have me on as a special guest… That kind of stage scares me for a number of reasons. One of which is, no matter who you are, when you’re put in front of that many eyeballs, you’re going to have a lot of haters. And I know I don’t like being hated.”…
There are now up-res versions of EVERY SINGLE ONE of my music videos, thanks to the work of our friend Pete Holmberg. So good news if you’ve been looking for an excuse to go down a Weird Al video rabbit hole on YouTube… they’ve never looked better!
— Al Yankovic (@alyankovic) May 19, 2023
Diversions Open Thread: Weird Al, A Role Model for the Rest of UsPost + Comments (39)