Ten years ago this week, “Weird Al” Yankovic released Mandatory Fun, which eventually went on to become his first No. 1 album. It would also be his last album, as its release marked the end of his 14-album contract, which started in the early 1980s. In the years afterward, Yankovic said he was going to take a step back from making new music rooted in pop to focus on other projects, including 2022’s biopic/parody of a biopic, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story. But today, to mark Mandatory Fun’s anniversary, Yankovic dusted off the ole accordion and funny-noises soundboard to make “Polkamania!”, a four-minute polka medley of the absolute biggest songs that were released during his absence.
For more than 40 years, Yankovic was pop music’s great observer. Through his curation of songs to parody, homage, and polkafy, he underlined what music truly was pop, from the era of mega pop stars in the ’80s to alternative rock in the ’90s to the steady ascent of hip-hop as the culture’s dominant art form. Sure, you wrote a hit, but is it such a hit that it would top the charts again if it was about ice cream or was played on the accordion? Nowadays, the monoculture might not be as all-consuming as it once was, but Yankovic realized while working on “Polkamania!” that if a pop song reached him, that probably means it has fully penetrated the culture. It is those songs that made the cut for “Polkamania!” (minus one artist, who ghosted him — more on that later):
Adele, “Hello”
Ariana Grande, “Thank U, Next”
Billie Eilish, “Bad Guy”
Cardi B feat. Megan Thee Stallion, “WAP”
Cast of Encanto / Lin-Manuel Miranda, “We Don’t Talk About Bruno”
Ed Sheeran, “Shape of You”
Lil Nas X, “Old Town Road”
Luis Fonsi feat. Daddy Yankee, “Despacito”
Mark Ronson feat. Bruno Mars, “Uptown Funk”
Miley Cyrus, “Flowers”
Olivia Rodrigo, “Vampire”
Taylor Swift, “Shake It Off”
Yankovic’s return to the pop-music space is welcome, but he is noncommittal about if he’s back for good. For now, after decades of making comedy about pop songs, he seems content with a once-a-decade pace — plus he already has an idea for a song to include in next decade’s medley.
What was it like not to be tapped into pop music so much for the last decade or so?
It was a nice break. I’ve always been a big pop-culture fan, but it was nice not to be so intensely focused on the Billboard charts and not have to make a part of my job description to have my finger on the pulse of what was happening in music. As a result, I do feel like I’m not as plugged in as I was prior to 2014. But it’s nice. I listen to a lot of my comfort music — the kind of bands I listened to in college. And my daughter is in college right now, and she’s introducing me to a lot of stuff that I probably wouldn’t have discovered on my own.
Were certain songs unavoidable?
Yeah, which is one of the reasons why I think that this medley works. I figure if I was aware of it in this last decade, it must be a big hit.
When you decided you wanted to do something in this space again, how did you land on doing a polka medley?
I’ve done polka medleys since the early ’80s. I’ve had them on 12 of my 14 studio albums. I did “The Hamilton Polka” in 2018, but before that, the last polka medley that I did was on my last album, which was basically a time capsule of when it came out in 2014. And during that time, there were a lot of big hits and a lot of major acts that have come through that I haven’t been able to comment on. I figured the best way to make that happen in one big lump was to do a polka medley.
When did you start working on it?
Probably six months to a year ago. I figured that the ten-year anniversary of Mandatory Fun was coming up and that would be a good target to hit. I like to have deadlines, so we made that the release date. Also, at some point we’re going to be back on the road touring, and I don’t want to just be a nostalgia act. I want to have new material to be able to play live onstage.
Can you walk me through the thought process of the track list?
I approached it the way I have done all my polka medleys. I make a list of all the songs that I think would be done that would sound a little bit better in a polka style — the biggest hits of the day, and ones with a really recognizable hook to them. I present that list to my manager, and then it’s his job to reach out to all the artists — or more likely, their managers or agents or publishers or representatives — and get clearance.
Once they have a list of songs that have been cleared, then it’s a puzzle. I have to figure out what order they go in. Usually I figure out what I want to end the medley with; there’s got to be something strong. And then: What do I want to begin it with? That’s also got to be something strong. Then it’s just got to have a nice flow to it. I have to figure out what song goes into the next song, what’s going to sound good, what’s going to be in my vocal range, what chord progressions are going to work together the best — that kind of thing.
Were any particularly hard to get approved?
We wanted to get SZA’s “Kill Bill” in the medley, but SZA never returned our phone calls. She was the only one. I don’t know why she didn’t say yes. She didn’t say no. I just got ghosted.
It took a little longer to get “WAP,” but I really, really wanted that in the medley. We were persistent, and we did get it cleared by both Megan Thee Stallion and Cardi B. I’m very happy that’s now included.
Were you part of that conversation, or was that still just through management?
Well, management tried, and we got Megan Thee Stallion, but we didn’t get Cardi B. Her representatives weren’t getting back to us. So … This sounds very name-drop-y of me, but I’m friends with Jamie Lee Curtis, and she was at my house and I said, “Hey, you wouldn’t happen to have any connection to Cardi B, would you?” And she said, “Oh, I just did a thing with her husband.” So she had his phone number, and we texted him a video of me and Jamie Lee Curtis saying, “Oh, we’d love for Cardi B to give us permission to use the song.” And apparently that worked.
There were a few artists I thought could’ve been in this who weren’t: Beyoncé, The Weeknd, Drake, Kanye West, and Harry Styles. Was there any reason?
Those would all be great options. You know, I didn’t want the medley to be ten minutes long. So cuts had to be made, and there’s no good reason why those artists are not in the medley. They certainly very well could have been.
Why “Vampire” instead of “Driver’s License” from Olivia Rodrigo?
Either one could have worked. In fact, that was a real decision for me. “Vampire” was more recent, more contemporary, and also I thought that the animation could possibly be a little darker. It just seemed like a darker theme.
Why “Shake it Off,” of all the Taylor Swift options?
That was the toughest decision, because I obviously really wanted a Taylor Swift song. I almost went with “Anti-Hero” because that’s a lot more current. But if you were to pick one Taylor Swift song based on which is probably the most iconic, the one that gets quoted the most, the one that’s most identified with her, I would say that’s probably “Shake it Off.” So I just thought to go with that, even though it is the oldest song in the medley.
Can any song be turned into a polka? From your decades of doing it, what really works for a thing like this?
Yeah, anything can be turned into a polka. The funniest are the ones where the subject matter or the lyrics are really kind of hard-edged or dark or weirdly sexual — things that would be really diametrically opposed to what you think of when you think of polka.
Can you walk me through the process from hearing “WAP” for the first time to what ends up on the record?
As soon as I heard that song on the radio the first time, I thought, Oh, this has got to be a polka. I waited a few years before reaching out, but I thought about it: What can I say? There are very few lines in the song I can really even say, you know, in a family-friendly polka. But I thought “big Mack truck” was nice and suggestive without being, you know, filthy. Then as far as the chorus, I was going on a long walk and I thought of those sound effects instead of the hook title. And I thought, Oh, yeah, that would work. That’d be fine.
I had fun breaking down “WAP” because it’s actually a very dissonant song, which you may not know until you start pulling it apart. I was like, Oh, yeah, that sounds really weird, but it kind of works somehow. So I made sure to keep the polka sort of dissonant in that way, so it gets under your skin a little bit.
Now that you’ve reentered the world of pop music, are you more or less likely to go back to do a parody?
I don’t know. I certainly wouldn’t rule it out. I’m certainly not as focused on that anymore, and ideas don’t normally come to me spontaneously for those; I have to really sit down and think about it. But if the right idea comes along, I certainly would do it.
The other thing is I painted myself into a corner because the longer I wait, the more focus and attention is going to get put on whatever I release. It’s sort of like if the Beatles started coming out with new singles: If it’s not the greatest song ever written in the world, people would be disappointed.
What is it like to be working on this medley, get the puzzle pieces together and then hear a song like “Espresso” by Sabrina Carpenter?
It almost made the cut. It would have been nice to have a song from 2024, and I almost went after it, but we were just down to the wire. In fact, my daughter was pushing for it. She was like, “You know it’s the song of the summer.” And I worked with Sabrina Carpenter — she was my co-star on Milo Murphy’s Law. That would have been fun too. But yeah, that one just barely missed out.
Well, you got the first song for the next decade.
There you go. I’ll get to work on that right now.
