'Weird' Al First No. 1 Album on Billboard with ‘Mandatory Fun’ in Celebrated 30 Year Career (VIDEO)

'Weird' Al Hits No. 1 on Billboard with New Album 'Mandatory Fun' For First Time in 30 Year Career (VIDEO)

'Weird' Al Yankovic is known by many as the 'king of Song Parodies' and now for the first time in his 30-year career, he is the king of the billboard charts. His new album Mandatory Fun hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album charts beating out singer/songwriter Jason Mraz. 

The album sold just over 104,000, according to Neilsen/SoundScan. That gave him the win over Jason Mraz, whose new album, Yes! sold under 84,000 copies.

"Even the notion of it happening nearly caused my head to expode," Yankovic told The News. "I never thought it was an option for me as someone making comedy albums."

 

The 54-year-old star's released a video online every day, turning them viral internet hits. These included Robin Thicke's 'Blurred Lines,' turned into 'Word Crimes,' and Pharrell Willams's 'Happy', revamped as 'Tacky' which helped create the buzz before the album release.  

 

Of the eight videos, the most viewed, according to Kontera, was Yankovic's rank on Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines" (turned into "Word Crimes"), followed by his parody of Pharrell's "Happy" ("Tacky"), Iggy Azalea's "Fancy" ("Handy"), and Lorde's "Royals" (redone as a wry take on aluminum called "Foil").

 

It is a big upswing for Weird Al's career as his last album, Alpocalypse released in 2011, only went as high as No. 9 on the charts and had only half of the sales of his new release. 

Yankovic's new album is actually the first comedy disc to hit Billboard's No. 1 spot since Allan Sherman's My Son, the Nut achieved the feat all the way back from 1963.

Yankovic actually sold bigger numbers of albums in the 1980s, when he achieved four gold and six platinum discs for works filled with hits like "Eat It" (his send-up of Michael Jackson's "Beat It") and "Ricky" (a rank on Toni Basil's smash "Mickey") but since album sales were higher back then, he never achieved No. 1 until now. 

 

 

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