Weird Al Yankovic

Howdy my rockin' Nimrod, how are you doing today?

The always funny, "Weird" Al Yankovic took a moment and discussed the major influence Michael Jackson had on his career in a Rolling Stone article. Not only this, but also he goes into detail about how two of his parodies came to be!

It all happened when Yankovic approached Jackson for a song parody, which according to Al was "a shot in the dark." Turns out, the pop star thought it was a
funny idea and returned the phone calls with his seal of approval for "Eat-it". Eventually Jackson also ended up letting Al use the subway set for "Bad" on Al's second parody "Fat".

Al reminisces about the very first time he met the pop star. "The first time I met him in person was long after I had gotten
permission to do "Eat It" back in 1984. There's a contract
somewhere that has his signature next to mine, proving that we are
the co-writers of "Eat It," which is surrealistic in and of itself."

Four years after the "Even Worse" record was out, Al ran into Michael backstage at one of his
concerts. The king of pop was busy mingling with a lot of people, when Yankovic presented a gold record of
"Even Worse" to him. Michael was very thankful and gracious and had some very nice words to say to the goofy star. After meeting, Yankovic thought to himself, "that's probably the last thing Michael Jackson needs, another gold record for his storage locker." Al describes the encounter by saying that "Seeing him in person
was amazing, it was otherworldly. He was and continues to be so
iconic, it's hard to even conceive of him as a human being. He
always was bigger than life."

Later on, they met for a second time at a TV show taping where Jackson performed "Black or White". Al recalls Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash, being onstage as well. Afterwords, Al briefly spoke to Jackson about some interesting things. One of which happened to be about how Michael would play Yankovic's movie "UHF" for his buddies at Neverland Ranch. The California native remembers the pop star as always being quiet, soft-spoken, and super nice to him.

He was considering parodying "Black or White" at the time, but MJ wasn't so into the idea. He felt that the song was quite personal and that it had strong message behind the infectious pop beat. Al was quite thankful because he didn't want to just be known as just a  "Michael Jackson" impersonator, he wanted to expand his horizons. This turned Al to Seattle grunge band Nirvana, thus the the rocking tune, "Smells Like Nirvana" was born. This in turn gave his career a good rejuvenating jolt!

Al is thankful to Michael for giving his music career a head start. "I don't know what kind of
career I would have today if it hadn't been for Michael Jackson. In
a very real sense, he jump-started my career. "Eat It" basically
changed me from an unknown into a guy that got recognized at Burger
King."

Michael Jackson was a huge influence on pop music, and will always continue to be. He will be sorely missed, may he rest in peace!

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Hola peeps, what's going on today?

"Weird" Al Yankovic just posted a blog on his Myspace about his new upcoming single "Craigslist". This will be the first of four brand new songs that will be available starting this Tuesday, June 16th digitally on iTunes and all the usual places you use to purchase music.

Along with the fresh new tune comes an awesome video to compliment the Tuesday release. It was shot by Yankovic's good friend, Liam Lynch, who also directed "Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny", and "Sarah Silverman: Jesus is Magic". He's also the genius inside those Lynchland podcasts!

This will be Al's first live action video since "White and Nerdy", but he warns to keep your expectations to a minimum! While "Nerdy" had quite a substantial budget, "Craigslist" will hardly have one to speak of. No Joke! The vid was shot in Lynch's very own garage, but don't get all worked up, because its "low budget" works out just fine with the video's concept according to Al.I'm sure that It'll work out just peachy!

Luckily, you don't have to wait until Tuesday to see this wacky video because AOL will be premiering on Monday June 15th. So stay tuned for all the details!

Guess what else is going on Tuesday? Weird Al will be doing a live Twitter and Ustream event on top of everything else! This California native will be answering fan's questions from 8pm to 9pm Eastern, 5pm to 6pm Pacific! More information to come about this very soon!

With all this talk of "Weird" Al events, ever want to know what it's really like inside his brain? Get inside Al's head as you watch the promo b#000000;">elow for AlsBrain.com! (Psst, AlsBrain.com is a promo for Al's Brain The Movie... Check it out!)

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