Weird Al Yankovic

See, I consider all those guys back there with the big muscles, and it's not my thing, but I consider them really beautiful to me.

He's so strong.

Yeah, you know, I actually started in the 70s because my first single, My Bologna, came out December 79.

Well, originally I was recording in the bathroom, so...

You know, my recording techniques got a little better over the years.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, for me, you know, I base a lot of my work on what pop culture is.

And I talk about this a lot in interviews, but back in the 80s and 90s, there was more of a monoculture.

Because, you know, if something was in Hot Rotation and MTV, everybody knew that song.

Top 40 radio was more of a thing where people were really focused on what the hits were.

And now everybody's into their own sub-genres and their niche musical tastes, which is great.

It's nice to have music on demand.

But it's a little bit harder to define who the superstars are, what the huge hits are.

When Weird Al gave up on it was... No, I'm actually more focused on other things, because I had a record deal that I signed in 1982, which last... I fulfilled it in just 32 short years.

And after I finished the record deal, I was like, OK, I'm just going to take a break and I'll just do other things for a while.

Right.

So it's not their original songs.

I get full song writing credit.

But they're inspired by other artists.

They're sound-alike style parodies, as it were.