Weird Al Yankovic’s parodies are in the name of fun

LOS ANGELES — Attention pop stars: If Weird Al Yankovic shows up at your concert or has tracked down your personal email address, you’re probably his next parody conquest.

Such was the case for artists such as Pharrell Williams and Iggy Azalea, who are covered by Yankovic in his latest album, Mandatory Fun. For his 14th studio effort, released last week, Yankovic had his heart set on Williams’ No 1 smash Happy. When he didn’t hear back from the singer’s camp, he decided to go straight to the source.

“I somehow got Pharrell’s home email address — I won’t say how — and I emailed him and asked if I could do the parody,” recalled the 54-year-old comedian. “He couldn’t have been nicer and he said he was honoured.”

Sometimes a face-to-face plea was necessary. Yankovic flew to Denver and waited backstage at Azalea’s concert to get permission to use her summer hit, Fancy.

“I introduced myself, ‘Hi, I’m Weird Al Yankovic and I would love to do a parody of Fancy,” he said. “The next morning, I was in the studio recording.”

Yankovic’s efforts paid off: Billboard reported that Mandatory Fun will debut at No 1 — his first — this week with more than 80,000 units sold. That’s almost double the amount his last album, Alpocalypse, sold in its debut week in 2011.

“This has been an amazing week. I have been doing roughly the same thing for many, many years, and this is the best week of my life in terms of the response from people,” he said. “It’s just insane and it’s extremely gratifying.”

Yankovic released eight music videos in eight days, but don’t say he was inspired by Beyonce, who dropped 17 videos with her surprise album last year. “It irks me this much when people say, ‘Oh, you’re doing a Beyonce’, because, you know, three years ago, when my last album came out, I did a video for every single song on the album, released it all at once, and nobody was saying to Beyonce, ‘Oh you’re doing a little Weird Al there are you?’”

Fun seems to be the key word for Yankovic — he has never gone the mean-spirited route. “When I do my parodies, it’s not meant to mock these people,” he said. “It’s an homage ... I don’t think you need to be hurtful to be funny.”

And who’s next on his parody wish list? “Even if I knew, I couldn’t tell you,” said Yankovic. “But after I’ve (finished) an album ... I really shut my brain off. I don’t think about parodies for a while. (Beyonce’s) on the list. I’ll get there eventually because then they will say, ‘Oh, you did a Beyonce.’” AP