It took a while, but “Weird Al”; Yankovic finally has his first #1 album.
The accordion-wielding comedy icon’s new album, Mandatory Fun, has sold over 104,000 copies in its debut week. That total allowed Yankovic to beat out Jason Mraz’s new offering (the 84,000ish units moved album Yes!) to claim the week’s sales crown.
Mandatory Fun also holds the distinction of being the first comedy album to debut at #1 in over 50 years. The last comedy record to achieve that feat was 1960’s The Button-Down Mind Of Bob Newhart.
The massive sales of Yankovic’s new album (which were no doubt aided by the artist’s impressive blitz of daily music video releases) possess an extra bit of intrigue as the comedy/music icon has noted that he may be done with the traditional album release format.
“I hate to draw lines in the sand and say this is absolutely the last album, but it sure looks that way,”; said Yankovic in a chat with the Associated Press. “It’s the end of my record deal. I’ve been under contract since 1982 and I just kind of feel like, especially with the kind of music that I do, the album format isn’t the best way to deliver that music… I’m going to try to jump on new hits and new trends as soon as I can (with singles) and try to be a little bit more competitive with everybody else in the world on YouTube.”;
Yankovic took to Twitter earlier today to enthusiastically thank his fans for their support.
It’s official. MANDATORY FUN enters the Billboard album chart this week at #1. Wow. WOW.
— Al Yankovic (@alyankovic) July 23, 2014
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If you’d told me 30 years ago this would happen, I never would’ve believed it. If you’d told me 2 WEEKS ago, I never would’ve believed it. — Al Yankovic (@alyankovic) July 23, 2014
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I’m so pleased everybody is enjoying the album, and I’m enormously grateful for everyone’s support. Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU.
— Al Yankovic (@alyankovic) July 23, 2014
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