Weird Al Yankovic Scores With ‘Mandatory Fun’
By BEN SISARIO
The New York Times
At some point last week, Weird Al Yankovic’s Twitter account became unmanageable.
Mr. Yankovic, 54, the proudly nerdy song parodist who became an early MTV staple with Michael Jackson sendups like “Eat It,” said Wednesday that he tries to respond to every Twitter message from his 3.3 million followers, but that the volume made even looking at his account seem like “drinking from the proverbial fire hose.”
The reason: the spectacular, viral success of the online video campaign to promote his latest album, “Mandatory Fun” (RCA), which this week became the first No. 1 of Mr. Yankovic’s three-decade career. With 104,000 sales in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan, “Mandatory Fun” is also the first comedy album to top Billboard’s album chart since Allan Sherman’s “My Son, the Nut” in 1963. His new videos have been watched a total of 46 million times.
“This is something I never dreamed would ever happen,” Mr. Yankovic said.
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