# Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (soundtrack)

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (Original Soundtrack) is the soundtrack album to the 2022 film Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, a satirical biopic, loosely based on the life and career of comedy musician "Weird Al" Yankovic, who is also credited as executive producer and co-writer of the film. The film, co-written and directed by Eric Appel (in his feature film directorial debut), stars Daniel Radcliffe as Yankovic, along with Evan Rachel Wood, Rainn Wilson, Toby Huss, Arturo Castro, and Julianne Nicholson in supporting roles.
The album features 46 tracks in total, consisting mostly Yankovic's early songs that were re-recorded for the album, new renditions of several of his parody songs, and original score compositions by Leo Birenberg and Zach Robinson, accompanying the remainder of it. Yankovic's original song "Now You Know" specially recorded for the film (in the closing credits) and album, was released as a single on November 4, 2022. The song was recorded in order to be eligible for a Best Original Song nomination at the 95th Academy Awards, but the prospects of an Academy Award campaign was dropped when the film's distributor, Roku, decided against a limited theatrical release for the film.
The same day, the album was released as a companion to the film by Legacy Recordings, in conjunction with its streaming premiere on The Roku Channel, though music enthusiasts mentioned it as a "surprise album" from Yankovic. It was released in CD on February 3, 2023, and a two-disc vinyl edition of the soundtrack was released on May 19, 2023.

## Production
### Background

The original score was composed by Leo Birenberg and Zach Robinson, who also worked on Cobra Kai (2018–present). Birenberg and Robinson discussed the film's music with Eric Appel and "Weird Al" Yankovic. While the film was being scored, Yankovic interacted with the crew through Zoom due to his touring schedule. Speaking on his creative collaboration with Yankovic, Birenberg said "he's an awesome guy to work with, because he's obviously so creative and such a visionary, but he also knows how much direction to give and to let people do their thing to make it as good as possible". On doing parody music, Robinson added that "you almost 'cue' the audience where to laugh a little bit. So the way you'll structure a specific build or a specific hit will be designed to tee up a punchline that exists in the on-camera work. And when you just play it straight, you're still hitting things and still building, but you're doing it in a way that you want the audience to be like, 'Yeah, I'm in it. This is a sweet action movie.' That's the difference."

### Composition

The accordion was used as the primary instrument in the score, played by Cory Pesaturo. On using an accordion for the themes, Robinson explained that the process was "insanely difficult", because of the nature of accordion playing, essentially balancing the aspects of an accordion and piano, while constantly bellowing. "[T]hat's what makes the sound, is the air being pushed out through these reeds that are in it ... your brain needs to be doing these three totally independent things and putting them together to execute the music." Robinson added that Yankovic knew of many varieties of accordions from various countries that have different sounds for different genres. In addition to the accordion, Birenberg and Robinson used orchestral music to complement the score, but also had accordion playing in some pieces.
According to Birenberg and Robinson, some of the sequences, including the reconciliation between Yankovic and his dad, Yankovic's speech, his meeting with Dr. Demento and the dinner fight sequence, were "fun to score". The theme for Al's speech was the first cue written and presented for the film, which was appreciated by Appel for its unique composition and style. The diner fight had a John Wick-styled musical score, which was played by accordion, which Robinson described as a "fun thing to do". For the first meeting between Yankovic and Madonna, Robinson had preferred his version of Yankovic's theme, vocalized by Madonna, that resulted in a "romantic", "over-the-top" piano piece which was scored, to do "a funny Madonna vibe".
For Dr. Demento and Al's meeting, the initial version was "almost telling the audience that they should be laughing" and was rejected by Appel. The second version had a more "aspirational and emotional thread", similar to Robert Zemeckis' films from the 1990s.

### Sound design and mixing

The re-recordings for the soundtrack were mixed by Tony Solis, while Anthony Vanchure served as supervising sound editor and sound design was provided by Mike James Gallagher. Phil McGowan mixed Birenberg and Robinson's score was mixed by Phil McGowan.
Both Gallagher and Vanchure discussed sound design in a music-themed film with Yankovic, who provided instructions on producing each sound uniquely. Vanchure called it a challenge "when you are doing audio for film because you have music, and that is helping tell the story, and then you also have the sound effects that we are using to help tell the story and with this movie, not only do we have Weird Al songs, but we also have a fantastic score by our composers, and it also is dependent on seeing how you mix a scene you need to keep playing it back a couple of times and go, “all right, what are we feeling, what's carrying the scene more.”"

## Track listing

* On vinyl releases, disc 1 comprises tracks 1–19, and disc 2 comprises tracks 20–46.

## Credits

Credits adapted from Vinyl liner notes.
MUSICIAN CREDITS
* Vocals & Accordion: "Weird Al" Yankovic
* Guitars: Jim "Kimo" West
* Bass: Steve Jay
* Drums & Percussion: Jon "Bermuda" Schwartz
* Keyboards: Ruben Valtierra
* Trumpet: Wayne Bergeron
* Saxophone: Tom Evans
* Background singers: Monique Donnelly, Scottie Haskell, Lisa Popeil
* Hand music: "Musical Mike" Kieffer
* Recorded and mixed by Dave Way at the Way Station
* Additional engineering: Rafael Serrano
SCORE CREDITS
* Score produced by Leo Birenberg & Zach Robinson
* Additional Music: Dan Light and Ramiro Rodriguez Zamarripa
* Score Coordinator: Michael Wilson
* Music Editor: Andres Locsey
* Score Mixer: Phil McGowan
* Orchestrator: Vincent Oppido
* Featured Accordionist: Cory Pesaturo
* Featured Pianist: Jeff Babko
Score Recorded by the Budapest Scoring Orchestra
* Conductor: György Gulyás-Nagy
* Session producer: Bálint Sapszon
* Orchestra coordinator: Bertalan Veér
* Recording Engineer: Dénes Rédly
* Music Copying: Norbert Elek, Csaba Puskas, Music Preparation: Dan Brown, Lorenzo Carrano, Filippo Landi, Nathanael Tronerud
* Tony Solis: Re-Recording Mixer
* Anthony Vanchure: Supervising Sound Editor
* Mike James Gallagher: Sound Designer
* Andres Locsey: Music Editor

## Charts

Chart performance for Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (Original Soundtrack) :
| Chart (2022) | Peak position |
| US Billboard 200 | 192 |
| US Soundtrack Albums (Billboard) | 15 |

## Release history

Release dates and formats for Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (Original Soundtrack) :
| Region | Date | Format(s) | Label | Ref. |
| Various | November 4, 2022 | Digital downloadstreaming | Legacy Recordings | [20] [21] |
| Various | February 3, 2023 | CD | Legacy Recordings | [20] [21] |
| Various | May 19, 2023 | Vinyl | Legacy Recordings | [20] [21] |

## Accolades

| Award | Date of ceremony | Category | Recipient(s) | Result | Ref. |
| Hollywood Music in Media Awards | November 16, 2022 | Best Music Themed Film, Biopic or Musical | Weird: The Al Yankovic Story | Nominated | [22] [23] |
| Hollywood Music in Media Awards | November 16, 2022 | Best Original Score – Streamed Live Action Film (No Theatrical Release) | Leo Birenberg and Zach Robinson | Nominated | [22] [23] |
| Hollywood Music in Media Awards | November 16, 2022 | Best Original Song – Streamed Film (No Theatrical Release) | Weird Al Yankovic for "Now You Know" | Won | [22] [23] |
| San Diego Film Critics Society | January 6, 2023 | Best Use of Music | Weird: The Al Yankovic Story | Nominated | |
| Society of Composers & Lyricists | February 15, 2023 | Outstanding Original Score for an Independent Film | Leo Birenberg and Zach Robinson | Nominated | |
| Society of Composers & Lyricists | February 15, 2023 | Outstanding Original Song for a Comedy or Musical Visual Media Production | Weird Al Yankovic for "Now You Know" | Nominated | |
| St. Louis Gateway Film Critics Association | December 18, 2022 | Best Soundtrack | Weird: The Al Yankovic Story | Nominated | |
| Grammy Awards | February 4, 2024 | Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media | Weird: The Al Yankovic Story | Nominated | |