Weird Al “has become popular not because he is immensely clever…but because he embodies how many people feel when confronted with pop music”

…what is it that Weird Al actually does? I don’t laugh at his songs, yet I’m delighted by his presence in the world of pop culture. With his parodic versions of hit songs, this somehow ageless fifty-four-year-old has become popular not because he is immensely clever—though he can be—but because he embodies how many people feel when confronted with pop music: slightly too old and slightly too square. That feeling never goes away, and neither has Al, who has sold more than twelve million albums since 1979.

Sasha Frere-Jones, “Weirdly Popular”, The New Yorker (11 & 18 August 2014), 92.