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Weird Al’s Manager Jay Levey on the Comedian-Musician’s First-Ever Billboard 200 No. 1
The Moment is a new series that features music's top executives and artists looking back at a meaningful moment in their careers that involved Billboard.
BY NICK WILLIAMS
As “Weird Al” Yankovic’s manager for nearly 40 years, Jay Levey helped the comedian-musician earn 827 million views on YouTube, 11 Billboard Hot 100 titles, led by “Eat It” (1984, No. 12) and “White & Nerdy” (2006, No. 9 peak), and 10.3 million total albums sold in the U.S., since Nielsen Music began monitoring retail sales in 1991.
In 2014, Al scored his first No. 1 debut on the Billboard 200 with Mandatory Fun — the first comedy album to top the chart since 1963. Below, Levey recalls the historic feat, which he celebrated by writing a “manager’s perspective” op-ed for Billboard.
“Jay Levey is such an amazing manager, I’d have gladly worked with him these last four decades even if he didn’t have those incriminating Polaroids of me in his safe,” says Yankovic.
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Growing up I wasn’t as aware of Billboard or its charts as I was just an avid radio listener. The record business and radio in particular were very free-wheeling in the ’60s, which made it possible for comedy artists like Allan Sherman and Bob Newhart to have No. 1 albums. As radio formats narrowed and consolidated over the years, the spirit of radio that I grew up with became unrecognizable. When I met Al in 1980, there was clearly a deep, untapped talent behind his raw, unbridled energy onstage. I knew he could fill that void if he had the resources, a full production and band behind him.
A chart-topping album felt out of reach for Al, who was always nipping at the heels of a best-seller over the course of three decades beginning in the ‘80s. He thought Mandatory Fun was among the best [albums] he had ever released and had quiet, high hopes for it. We were backstage at a TV taping when the official news came in. His wife, Suzanne, and daughter, Nina, were there to surprise him. It was very emotional for him. Up until then, we had a respectable, long-standing concert business playing 2,000-seat theaters. Then we were selling out Colorado’s [9,525-capacity] Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Los Angeles’ [5,870-capacity] Greek Theatre, New York’s [6,015-capacity] Radio City Music Hall.
He was already the best-selling comedy recording artist in history, but having a No. 1 album seemed to instantly propel him even higher, as if some incandescent halo had permanently attached itself to him and his career. Mandatory Fun was going to be his last album, so to reach the top with it was, for him, the ultimate mic drop. I was both honored and exhausted when Billboard asked me to write about what had just happened. It was sheer wonderment to watch Al completely harness the internet. Over 30 years, he has balanced his pure adolescent irreverence with being a grown-up and a family man. He still can’t quite believe he gets to do this for a living. I guess you can count me second.
A version of this article originally appeared in the Dec. 21 issue of Billboard.