An ’80s MTV song parodist? If there ever was a recipe for fried flash-in-the-pan, ’Weird Al’ Yankovic should have been it.

Amazingly, two-plus decades after sending up Michael Jackson with Eat It, the world’s funkiest accordionist has proven more durable than any of the acts he sends up.

He surfed genres through the ’90s and into the new millennium, spoofing grunge (Smells Like Nirvana), alt-rock (Gump, to the tune of Presidents of the United States’ Lump), and R&B/hip-hop (the Coolio take-off Amish Paradise).

And he has just put out his highest-charting single — White and Nerdy (a spoof of rapper Chamillionaire’s Ridin’) from his new album Straight Outta Lynwood.

The single hit No. 9 in Billboard last week, three spots higher than Eat It.

Add to that a video, featuring "my white and nerdy celebrity friends" like Seth Green, Donny Osmond and Judy Tenuta, that’s been one of YouTube’s most-watched.

But in some ways it’s harder than ever to be Weird Al. For starters, try finding a song so well known, everybody gets the joke. (Could you hum Ridin’? Or spot Chamillionaire in a crowd?)

"It’s definitely something I’ve noticed," Yankovic confirms. "The music scene is compartmentalized. I don’t think there are as many superstars or crossover hits these days."

R&B does sell in the millions. So along with Ridin’, Straight Outta Lynwood has a takeoff of Usher (Confessions Part III) and Trapped in the Drive-Thru, a 10-minute parody of R. Kelly’s equally indulgent Trapped in the Closet.

As for rock, there is Canadian Idiot, a spoof of Green Day’s American Idiot — and a song he admits isn’t getting much airplay with its curling references and "zeds."

"As much as they’d like to play a Green Day parody, they say, ’Nobody here will get these references, why did you even do this?’ And I say, ’Well, I thought it was funny.’ I think by now I’ve spent enough time here to at least get dual Canadian citizenship."

Bands like Coldplay and Black Eyed Peas get their moment in his de rigueur polka medley. "At this point, I think there’d be rioting if I didn’t have the polka."

In the ’80s, Yankovic says, "I basically put out an album a year because I didn’t want people to forget me." These days it’s about one every three years.

Getting the permission of the spoofees remains an occasional stumbling block. This time around, James Blunt refused (Yankovic still plans to play You’re Pitiful, his spoof of You’re Beautiful, in concert). "And I was going to do a Daniel Powter parody on the new album, with his song Bad Day. And he said, ’No.’ And then literally the day before we went into the studio to record White and Nerdy, we got a call saying he changed his mind and he wanted to do it after all. And I had to inform him that the train had left the station."

On the other hand, "it’s actually quite a coup that I was able to get Led Zeppelin to let me and my band do that little bit of Black Dog in Trapped in the Drive-Thru. They’re famous for not letting people do anything with their music.

"The coolest thing about my life is I’m able to meet and befriend and sometimes work with people I’ve admired since I was a kid. It boggles my mind that Alice Cooper calls me up to do a charity concert with him, and I still remember watching him onstage through binoculars when I was 16 years old.

"You just want to time-trip and tell your 14-year-old self, ’You’re not gonna believe what’s gonna happen in 20 years.’ "