Weird Al Yankovic is a blogging muse.
Yes, I realize “Weird Al” and “blogging” are words you usually don’t see together very often. In fact, add the words “peanut butter,” “Canada” and “porcupine,” and you would have quite the game of Mad Libs.
This shouldn’t be so. In fact, it’s my belief Weird Al Yankovic and blogging go hand in hand!
Why?
Because there is much we bloggers can learn from the life, habits and career of Weird Al.
Things like…
1. Weird Al turned a hobby into his profession and livelihood
Weird Al didn’t begin parodying songs with the knowledge it was going to be lucrative.
He didn’t take his first accordion lesson the day before his sixth birthday because he knew of the success awaiting him.
God didn’t speak to Weird Al in a dream and tell him to write a song about bologna and record it in a bathroom. (You know, for the great acoustics.)
No, Weird Al did these things because he loved doing them.
It was a hobby! A hobby he enjoyed. A hobby he probably would have continued doing even if he never made a cent doing it.
The takeaway for bloggers…
Most of us got into blogging because it was something we loved to do.
For some of us, we blog because it’s cathartic. Writing down your thoughts (and sometimes venting your frustrations) is therapeutic.
Some of us blog to connect with others. Engaging and interacting with total strangers is fun. Having someone leave you a comment complimenting your work is fun. Validation is fun.
And some of us got into blogging because, yes, we want to earn a living.
Regardless of why we got into blogging initially, many of us reach the point where we hope to turn it into more than a hobby.
Some of us even hope to turn blogging into our profession and livelihood.
If Weird Al can do it for his hobby, why not us?
2. Weird Al isn’t original, and that’s okay
To this day, Weird Al has critics who ridicule him for being unoriginal.
Never mind the fact what Weird Al does requires a tremendous amount of creativity, there are critics who dismiss him as a hack because, in their minds, all he does is take popular songs and change the lyrics.
Even if you think Weird Al is unoriginal, so what?
In her post titled “The Sin or Originality,” Henneke Duistermaat discussed how mimicking the work of others is done all the time.
TV shows like “Parks and Recreation”, “The Office,” “Scrubs” and “Community” all borrowed elements (over-the-top characters, theme episodes, cartoon-like antics, etc.) from 90s-forgotten-gem NewsRadio.
Rock group Stone Temple Pilots combined the influences of Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and others into the making of its own distinct sound.
With movies, it’s nearly impossible to watch a thriller and not see the fingerprints of Alfred Hitchcock all over it.
In each of these examples, someone took the work of someone else, put their own spin on it, and made it their own.
Just like Weird Al.
The takeaway for bloggers…
If you try to write on topics no one has ever before discussed, you’re going to have a difficult time as a blogger.
In fact, if you try too hard to be original, you’re probably going to fail as a blogger.
So what should you do?
Read the works of others.
See what’s successful in your particular blogging niche.
Take someone else’s idea and put your own spin on it.
Make it your own.
Make it better.
3. Weird Al is not afraid to think outside the box
Off the top of my head, Weird Al has written songs on the following bizarre topics:
- Hernias
- Cross-dressing truck drivers
- Amish people
- The Flintstones
- His hatred of sauerkraut
- Buying William Shatner’s toupee on eBay
In other words, Weird Al can be “out there” sometimes.
The takeaway for bloggers…
It’s okay to be a little “out there” when you’re picking topics for your blog.
Conventional is boring. Typical is boring. All synonyms for “normal” are boring.
Don’t be boring.
Similarly…
4. Weird Al takes mundane topics and makes them interesting
When he’s not writing on “out there” topics like William Shatner’s toupee, Weird Al is writing about the mundane.
A glance at his catalog and you will see Weird Al has made a career from turning unimpressive topics into hilarity. A few, in no particular order, are:
- Potatoes
- Polka
- The biggest ball of twine in Minnesota
- Craigslist
- Germs
- The grapefruit diet
- Jeopardy
- Ducks
- Lasagna
To prevent you from falling asleep, I’ll stop with those. But I assure you the mundane list goes on and on.
The takeaway for bloggers…
If Weird Al can write a song about the biggest ball of twine in Minnesota, you can make whatever topic you’re writing about interesting and compelling.
Whether it’s food or finance, sewing or sports, blogging or Billy Baldwin; there’s no reason a mundane topic has to feel mundane.
Spruce it up.
Make it come to life.
5. Weird Al knows the importance of good grammar
One of the videos for his latest album, Mandatory Fun, is for a song titled “Word Crimes.”
To those who couldn’t watch it (or didn’t want to), this short video will teach people more about proper grammar than four years of high school and one semester of college.
The takeaway for bloggers…
Don’t write good. Write well.
Your readers will thank you.
6. Weird Al adapts to changing trends…
A big reason Weird Al has been able to make parodies for over three decades is he’s never pigeonholed himself.
In his early days, parodying Michael Jackson, Madonna, and songs about “food” were Weird Al’s bread and butter. He had some of his biggest hits with his parodies of “Bad,” “Beat It,” and “Like a Virgin.” And he wrote so many songs about food he released the aptly-titled “The Food Album” in 1993.
But, you can’t keep parodying Michael Jackson, Madonna, and food forever.
Michael Jackson and Madonna eventually go crazy, get old, or die. And you can only write so many songs about food before even comedian and food-connoisseur Jim Gaffigan tunes you out.
As musical trends changed, Weird Al changed with them.
When “grunge” music hit it big, Weird Al parodied Nirvana.
When the rapper Coolio was having his fifteen minutes of fame with “Gangsta’s Paradise,” Weird Al gave us “Amish Paradise.”
When the Star Wars prequels were all the rage, Weird Al channeled Don McLean and wrote “The Saga Begins.”
And it’s not just musical trends. Weird Al adapts to changing trends…
…as well as new technologies
Weird Al came to prominence during the early years of MTV and cassette tapes.
Through the years he’s seen compact discs replace cassettes and iPods replace compact discs.
He’s seen YouTube and social media enter people’s lives and change the way artists promote their work and interact with their fans.
He’s seen Napster come and go, and he’s seen the digital market via iTunes and Amazon reinvent the way people buy music.
And he’s adapted through all of it.
The takeaway for bloggers…
Adapt!
Many a blogger (yours truly included) was slow to accept Twitter and Facebook when they first hit the scene.
Some bloggers continue to emphasize RSS subscribers and Twitter followers, even though study after study says your mailing list should be your #1 priority.
Some bloggers rely solely on Google Adsense to monetize their blogs, even though affiliates and selling your own product often returns more revenue.
Some bloggers still use MySpace.
If your blog doesn’t adapt, it’s going to eventually die. It will be remembered only when it’s being mocked.
Just like MySpace.
7. Weird Al keeps it clean
Some of Weird Al’s parodies are based on songs which were vulgar, violent, or worse (i.e. Miley Cyrus).
However, Weird Al’s song are clean and family friendly. There are very few musicians children, teenagers, and parents could listen to together. Weird Al is one of them.
While this may diminish his “cool” factor in the eyes of some, it allows Weird Al to cast a wider audience net.
The takeaway for bloggers…
Depending on your niche, keeping it clean on your blog will make promotion and monetization much easier.
Some people won’t share a post which isn’t family friendly. I’m one of these individuals. If it’s not something I would want my mom, wife, or future children to read; I’m not going to share it.
Advertisers are far more likely to want to advertise on your site if they know your site isn’t alienating a faction of their demographic.
Cast a wide net and keep things clean.
8. Weird Al recruits his friends
Michael Jackson was reportedly such a fan, in 1988 he allowed Yankovic to film his “Fat” music video on the same set built for Jackson’s “Bad” — the song and video Weird Al was parodying.
Through the years, celebrities such as Drew Carey, Jack Black, Patton Oswalt, Thomas Lennon, Robert Ben Garant, Robert Goulet, Florence Henderson, and Seth Green have worked on Weird Al’s music videos.
Granted, this list doesn’t include any Brad Pitts, Kevin Costners or Dwayne Johnsons, but it goes to show you don’t need superstars to promote your content. Friends with any measure of influence can help you get the word out.
The takeaway for bloggers…
You don’t need a Darren Rowse or Jon Morrow to link to your content in order for it to be successful.
Would it help? Sure. It would help the same way Lebron James starring in one of Weird Al’s music videos would help Yankovic earn more views on YouTube.
Obtaining a link from someone of such ilk isn’t easy.
What is easy? Getting the readers you already have to promote your content.
Or how about making connections with bloggers a level or two higher than you are right now? Engage with them. Befriend them. Share their content and leave them insightful comments.
And while you’re engaging with them, learn from them. They’re more popular than you for a reason, after all.
Remember:
In both height and Twitter followers, a half dozen Seth Greens equal one Dwayne Johnson.” [tweet this]
Never forget that.
9. Weird Al reads… a lot
While interviewing him for Rolling Stone, writer Andy Greene noticed a large collection of books in Weird Al’s home. These books included:
- The Complete Paintings and Drawings of Leonardo da Vinci
- Selected Poems by Walt Whitman
- To Kill a Mockingbird
- SoulPancake: Chew on Life’s Big Questions (written by the actor who played Dwight Schrute on TV’s “The Office”)
The takeaway for bloggers…
The best writers are also readers.
If you want to improve your blog and your blog writing, start by reading the blogs of others.
Beyond gaining inspiration for ideas, you’ll be able to see how other bloggers write. And you’ll be able to ask yourself questions like:
“How would I have introduced this post?”
“How could he/she have made this paragraph cleaner?”
“Is this a good ‘call to action’ for this post? How could I make it better?”
Want to be a better blogger? Read as much as Weird Al reads.
10. Weird Al edits… a lot
All of Weird Al’s lyrics go through numerous rewrites and revisions.
He’ll even write alternate lyrics to give himself options.
“Is this one better…or is this one better? Better 1? Or better 2?”
By the time any of his fans hear a song of his, Weird Al has edited and revised the lyrics over and over.
The takeaway for bloggers…
Don’t publish your first draft.
Don’t publish your second draft.
Before publishing, go through your content with a machete. If it doesn’t belong, cut it out.
If a sentence can be worded better, reword it.
In the blogging process, “editing” is the step most bloggers often overlook.
Don’t be most bloggers.
11. Weird Al knows how to promote
As hard as he worked to make the album, Weird Al worked just as hard (if not harder) promoting it.
Beyond the typical pre-release interviews and such, two days before his album (Mandatory Fun) was released Weird Al tweeted the following:
I’ll be premiering 8 brand new music videos – one every single day for 8 days – starting TOMORROW MORNING. (11 AM Eastern, 8 AM Pacific)
– Al Yankovic (@alyankovic) July 13, 2014
And he did just that. For eight consecutive days — two days before his album release, the day of its release, and five days after — Weird Al premiered eight different music videos. It was impossible (impossible!) to get on Facebook, Twitter, or any other social media platform during this period without seeing a Weird-Al-related status from your friend, cousin, or uncle. Weird Al was everywhere. And ten days after the aforementioned tweet, Weird Al had the following to show for his efforts:
It’s official. MANDATORY FUN enters the Billboard album chart this week at #1. Wow. WOW. ? Al Yankovic (@alyankovic) July 23, 2014
Thirty-one years after releasing his debut, Weird Al had the #1 album for the first time in his career.
The takeaway for bloggers…
For starters: persistence pays off.
Secondly, promoting your content is just as important (if not more so) for the success of your blog as the creation of content.
Too many bloggers write a post, share it on Twitter and Facebook, and then sit back and wait for the traffic to come their way.
When it doesn’t happen they shrug, write an even better post, and repeat their earlier steps for promotion.
True, some will decide to mix things up. They’ll start commenting on other blogs. Maybe they’ll share the post on Facebook and Pinterest, too.
But the ratio of content creation to promotion remains relatively the same for most bloggers.
90/10. 80/20. Maybe 70/30.
Do you think Weird Al spent nine times more hours creating his album than he did promoting it?
The total amount of effort and research put into the promotion of Mandatory Fun must be staggering.
And you think a thirty-second Tweet is going to cut it?
If you’re not putting as much time and effort into promoting your content as you do creating it, your blog isn’t going to keep up with the bloggers who do.
Wrapping it up
Behind almost every success story, there are lessons to be learned.
Tips we can incorporate. Strategies we can duplicate. Epiphanies we can process.
Yes, Weird Al writes funny songs for a living. It doesn’t mean he can’t teach or inspire us.
If Weird Al can join the ranks of the rich and famous by writing songs about food, you can find success writing about whatever it is you write about.
It’s hard work, but you can do it.
Just like Weird Al did it.
