Across 14 studio albums, Weird Al has released 12 polka medleys — every album from In 3-D (1984) through Mandatory Fun (2014), with the lone exception of 1988's Even Worse. Add three standalone polka singles — Polkamon (1999, Pokémon movie), The Hamilton Polka (2018), and Polkamania! (2024) — plus the gloriously cursed "North Korea Polka" live appearance on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, and the canon hovers at around 16 polka songs, depending on how seriously you count guest spots. Each one is a tornado of pop hits, key changes, oompah brass, and an accordion that does not get a single second off. Below: every one of them, in order, with what you need to know.
The Definitive Playlist (Embedded, Plays Right Here)
A community-curated YouTube playlist of every Weird Al polka in existence, in order, including the legendary North Korea Polka live performance from Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. Hit play. Make a sandwich. Come back in two hours.
1. "Polkas on 45" — 1984 • "Weird Al" Yankovic in 3-D Watch on YouTube
The original. The seed. The Big Bang of the Yankovic Polka Medley Cinematic Universe. Mashes together "Jocko Homo" (Devo), "L.A. Woman" (Doors), "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" (Iron Butterfly), "Hey Jude" (Beatles), "Hot Blooded" (Foreigner), "Smoke on the Water" (Deep Purple), "Hey Joe" (Hendrix), and several others. Took inspiration from the Stars on 45 disco medleys. Invented a format that would outlast disco, the Cold War, and at least three subsequent music industries.
2. "Hooked on Polkas" — 1985 • Dare to Be Stupid Watch on YouTube
Hooked, indeed. Covers Madonna's "Like a Virgin," Tina Turner's "What's Love Got to Do With It," "We're Not Gonna Take It" (Twisted Sister), and a parade of mid-80s radio standards. The medley is, in retrospect, an absolutely perfect snapshot of 1984-85 pop, preserved in oompah amber.
3. "Polka Party!" — 1986 • Polka Party! Watch on YouTube
Title track of the album it appears on. Album-named-after-the-medley. Confidence level: maximum. Includes "Addicted to Love" (Robert Palmer), "Papa Don't Preach" (Madonna), "You Spin Me Round" (Dead or Alive), "Sledgehammer" (Peter Gabriel), and "Sussudio" (Phil Collins), which is sort of a redundant choice because the original is already 90% an accordion riff if you squint.
The Even Worse Asterisk — 1988
1988's Even Worse is the lone Weird Al studio album with no polka medley. The closest thing to genre-mashup mischief on the record is "Twister," a 67-second Beastie Boys pastiche — rapped, not polka'd. Brilliant in its own right, but not what the accordion had ordered. Polka historians have been writing apologetic letters about this gap for almost forty years. Al has not commented. The accordion has not forgiven.
4. "Hot Rocks Polka" — 1989 • UHF — Original Motion Picture Soundtrack and Other Stuff Watch on YouTube
Brave. Bold. Confidently runs through eight Rolling Stones songs — "Brown Sugar," "Ruby Tuesday," "Satisfaction," "Get Off of My Cloud," "Honky Tonk Women," "Jumpin' Jack Flash," "Paint It Black," "Start Me Up" — in the time it takes Mick Jagger to put on a scarf. Universally agreed-upon best polka medley by people whose opinion we value, which is people who agree with us.
5. "Polka Your Eyes Out" — 1992 • Off the Deep End Watch on YouTube
The early '90s in five minutes. C+C Music Factory. Cher. Whitney Houston. Hammer. The dawning realization that hip-hop and accordion are, in fact, compatible. The title is also a delightful idiom that means absolutely nothing.
6. "Bohemian Polka" — 1993 • Alapalooza Watch on YouTube
Not technically a "medley" — this is a polka cover of only Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" in its entirety. We're including it because (a) the song is itself a six-part operatic medley, (b) Brian May personally endorsed it, and (c) it might be the funniest 3:39 in recorded musical history. The opera section is the funniest part. You will know it when you hear it.
7. "The Alternative Polka" — 1996 • Bad Hair Day Watch on YouTube
Polka comes for grunge. "Loser" (Beck), "Sex Type Thing" (Stone Temple Pilots), "Basket Case" (Green Day), "Bullet With Butterfly Wings" (Smashing Pumpkins), and a closing volley of "All I Wanna Do" (Sheryl Crow), "Lump" (Presidents of the USA), and "You Oughta Know" (Alanis Morissette). The most '90s thing ever recorded, on the least '90s instrument ever invented.
8. "Polka Power!" — 1999 • Running with Scissors Watch on YouTube
Will Smith. Spice Girls. Hanson. Backstreet Boys. Marcy Playground. Aqua's "Barbie Girl." The late-90s pop machine, run through an accordion with such force you can almost hear TRL screaming in the background.
9. "Polkamon" — 1999 • Pokémon: The Movie 2000 soundtrack Watch on YouTube
The single. The deep cut. The polka that is not a medley of pop songs but a medley of Pokémon names. The entire 3:36 runtime is Weird Al singing the names of Pokémon over a polka beat, with brief lyrical interludes. "Pikachu, Bulbasaur, Squirtle, and Charmander..." — you get the idea. Released as a tie-in to the second Pokémon film, included on the official soundtrack. A generation of children learned the polka without realizing they had been tricked.
10. "Angry White Boy Polka" — 2003 • Poodle Hat Watch on YouTube
Title is the joke. The medley is sincere. Limp Bizkit, Eminem, Korn, Disturbed, System of a Down, Linkin Park, P.O.D., White Stripes, Strokes. Polka somehow makes nu-metal more cathartic, not less. Live versions are tremendous.
11. "Polkarama!" — 2006 • Straight Outta Lynwood Watch on YouTube
Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy." Pussycat Dolls. Kanye. Green Day. Franz Ferdinand. Eminem (again). The 2006 mainstream radio dial in concentrated form. You could replay the Top 40 of that year using only this track and four minutes.
12. "Polka Face" — 2011 • Alpocalypse Watch on YouTube
The Grammy-nominated one. Lady Gaga ("Poker Face," "Bad Romance"), Britney Spears ("3"), Beyoncé ("Single Ladies"), Black Eyed Peas ("I Gotta Feeling"), T.I., Justin Bieber, Pink, Kesha, Owl City. Lady Gaga publicly endorsed the parody. This medley is, no exaggeration, the most accordion-virtuosic Al has ever played.
13. "NOW That's What I Call Polka!" — 2014 • Mandatory Fun Watch on YouTube
Wrecking Ball. Gangnam Style. Call Me Maybe. Thrift Shop. Pumped Up Kicks. Some Nights. Royals. The 2010s in concentrate. The album it appears on (Mandatory Fun) debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 — the first comedy album in 50+ years to do that — meaning, briefly, that more Americans were buying polka than any other style of music. We will accept this as a national mandate.
14. "The Hamilton Polka" — 2018 • standalone single (Hamildrops) Watch on YouTube
Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton released a yearlong series of monthly bonus tracks called the "Hamildrops." For the third drop, in February 2018, Lin-Manuel personally invited Weird Al to polkify the entire musical. Al did. The Hamilton Polka covers fifteen songs from the show in four minutes and four seconds, hitting every major emotional beat, including a heart-tugging accordion rendition of "It's Quiet Uptown." It is, on a per-second basis, the most ambitious thing Al has ever recorded. Lin-Manuel called it "perfect." We agree.
15. "Polkamania!" — 2024 • standalone single Watch on YouTube
The most recent. Released July 2024 to coincide with the start of Al's Bigger and Weirder Tour. Covers the pop hits of the post-Mandatory Fun decade — Olivia Rodrigo, Lizzo, Lil Nas X, Doja Cat, Harry Styles, Dua Lipa, Glass Animals, the works.
The cosmic coincidence: Polkamania.com was registered as a domain in 2020 — four years before this single existed. We had no idea Al would name a 2024 single after our website. He didn't, technically — we registered the name first. But the universe arranged for the polka king to release a banger called "Polkamania!" while we were sitting on the URL. We did not plan this. The polka does not require our plans. The polka has its own plans.
Bonus: "The North Korea Polka" — Live on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver Watch on YouTube
Not a studio recording. Not even technically a Weird Al song — Last Week Tonight's writers commissioned it — but Al played it live on the show with the full band, in the full glorious tradition of his medleys, set to a beat that is one hundred percent oompah. The lyrics chronicle the absurdities of Kim Jong-un's regime. The accordion does not pull a single punch. It is, depending on which polka historian you ask, either a footnote, the sixteenth polka in the canon, or a holy text. We accept all three readings.
The Unspoken Rules of the Weird Al Polka Medley
- Always at least six songs. Often more. The Hamilton Polka covers fifteen. NOW That's What I Call Polka! covers twelve. Quality, quantity, both.
- Key changes every section. The accordion does not believe in transitions, only kicks.
- Usually album-cycle, occasionally not. Most medleys are paired with a studio album. But the three standalone singles — Polkamon (1999), The Hamilton Polka (2018), and Polkamania! (2024) — broke the rule. Al makes the rules. Al breaks the rules. Al continues to be the only person allowed to.
- Burp at the end. Many medleys close with a single audible burp from Al. This is, depending on who you ask, canon, signature, or trademark. Do not argue.
- The band is the band. Steve Jay on bass, Jim "Kimo" West on guitar, Jon "Bermuda" Schwartz on drums, Rubén Valtierra on keys. This lineup has been recording Al's polkas since 1991. The polka medley is, in fact, a remarkably stable institution.
