News: Weird Al Yankovic’s Mandatory Fun Debuts At Number 1
2 min read
Multi-Grammy Award winner “Weird Al” Yankovic’s 14th studio album, Mandatory Fun, debuts at #1 on the Billboard Top 200, Digital Albums and Comedy charts, selling just under 104,000 units in its first week. This marks a personal first week sales best and first #1 album debut for Yankovic. The last time a comedy album topped the Billboard chart was 51 years ago, with Allan Sherman’s 1963 release My Son, the Nut. It is also the largest sales week for a comedy album since 1994.
On Spotify, Yankovic sets the US record for having the most tracks from one album in the viral top 10 at one time taking the first 4 spots. Additionally, Al saw an increase of 785% in streams across all his albums totaling 3.2 million streams including 2.1 million streams of Mandatory Fun. Yankovic topped Spotify’s Viral chart globally.
Last Monday, Yankovic kicked off a massive week of promotion with the release of the first of 8 videos in 8 days. All 8 videos (“Tacky,” “Word Crimes,” “Foil,””Handy,” “Sports Song,” “Lame Claim To Fame,” “First World Problems” and “Mission Statement”) have totaled over 46 million views combined in just one week. Yankovic teamed up with various production partners such as Nerdist Industries, CollegeHumor, Yahoo (Principato-Young Entertainment), Funny or Die and TruScribe, as well as talented auteurs like Liam Lynch, Jarrett Heather and Tim Thompson.
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In the spirit of Mandatory Fun‘s bid for world domination, the album peaked on iTunes at #1 in Australia and New Zealand and #3 in Canada and Sweden and has received critical acclaim from around the globe, including The Los Angeles Times which called the album “a stone cold masterpiece” and gave it four stars. Bloomberg Businessweek declared “Weird Al is incredibly deft at recreating any popular music genre” and The Telegraph called Weird Al “one of the most enduring musical acts of our time.”
“Weird Al” Yankovic is the biggest-selling comedy recording artist in history with over 12 million albums sold. Now in his fourth career decade, he has released 14 studio albums, won 3 Grammys (with 14 nominations) as well as countless awards and accolades for his classics such as “White & Nerdy,” “Eat It,” “Like a Surgeon,” “Fat,” “Smells Like Nirvana,” “Amish Paradise,” “The Saga Begins” and many more.
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