Weezer
| Weezer | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Background information | |
| Also known as | Goat Punishment The Buddy Holly Guys |
| Origin | Los Angeles, California |
| Genre(s) | Rock |
| Years active | 1992—present |
“What's this guy's name? Rivers? That's his name? Rivers is our next Buddy Holly.”
Weezer is an American rock-band that was formed in 1992 by lead singer and nerd Rivers Cuomo. It was to help boost the morale of Underdogs, Rejects, Emos, and other types of people that are way too awesome to be loved by the ruling douchebags of human society. The band consists of Cuomo, Pat Wilson, Brian Bell and Scott Shriner — along with Karl Koch, who is the band's bitch. Weezer quickly rose to fame with the release of their single "Buddy Holly", and as a result, their debut album, The Blue Album, is considered to be "better than most mainstream shit". The album has sold millions of copies, and since then, Weezer has released sixteen full-length albums (only 3 of which people bothered to buy), about 20 EPs, and a couple thousand High Definition DVDs.
History[edit]
1992–1999[edit]
Blue Debut[edit]
In the beginning, there was Rivers, who was a Cuomo. He and Patrick worked at Palermo's scrubbing pots and pans. Rivers heard The Pixies on the radio and said "I want to be a rock star". Rivers then used his war bonds to buy a microphone, and found a few other struggling musicians in the local homeless shelter. And, Weezer was born baby. Weezer toured the countryside playing flutes and trombones before being discovered. The Quadoro that was Weezer (definitely without the aid of Jason Cropper), recorded their first self-titled album Weezer, though it was called The Blue Album by their geek fans, in 1994.
The hit album spawned a hit song in the form of "Buddy Holly", which was written in homage to Rivers Cuomo's wiener, that he nicknamed 'Buddy Holly'. The story goes as;
| “ | Band mate Matt Sharp was sitting at home reading a book, So You Think You're Bigger Than Your Own Band? How To Be a Douche, Then Quit Your Band, when he decided to visit Cuomo. As the two were friends, bandmates, and some may say secret lovers, Matt quite often walked straight into Rivers' home, but this afternoon, Cuomo wasn't expecting a visit, thus was walking around naked, holding his dick singing "OOO-WEE-OO, I LOOK JUST LIKE BUDDY HOLLY!" in the mirror. Thus the name Buddy Holly stuck. | ” |
The Pink Album[edit]
Weezer then took a much needed break, and with the band having internal conflict due to Japanese sluts hijacking the band, Cuomo was struck with depression, hate, angst, and the thought of writing "awesome muthafucking pop songs". As Cuomo contemplated buying a synthesizer, he was struck down by maggots eating his legs. With this discomfort, Rivers wrote a series of demos expressing the pain and angst of his life.
Upon hearing these demos, Jason Cropper had the idea of recording it and releasing it as Greenerton. He was, of course, entirely ignored by Rivers, because Jason was definitely still not in the band. Rivers soon got together with Mikey Welsh and Scott Shriner, and recorded Pinkerton. Brian was probably there too. The album was released in 1996, and was initially a huge success — selling over 3 million copies in the U.S., and 20 million copies in Japan.
In February 1998, Matt Sharp left Weezer. The decision was apparently made amicably, but Sharp does not wish to reveal the full details of why he did it. In a 2016 interview, he said "I don't really know how to speak on this because I don't know what should be kept private and what should be shared."
2000–2007[edit]
Green and Maladroit[edit]
In 2001, Rivers admitted to the press that he was a "little tired", and maybe it was "time to sleep". He then sold Weezer to Patrick Wilson, and found a nice cave under a Los Angeles freeway — hoping to hibernate for the winter. Patrick worked hard, signed a contract with Jackson Records, and proceeded to produce an album, which he named The Green Album. It contained the songs "Hash Pipe" and "Island in the Sun". It sold tons of CDs, and made Patrick Wilson "almost as rich as Bill Gates."
Rivers soon awoke from his deep sleep to find that his beloved band had been turned into something wealthier than an oil company (and his pants sticky with semen after numerous wet dreams about Japanese girls). It made Rivers really think, and came to the conclusion of "Why bother?", before swearing vengeance on the traitors that were his bandmates, and re-established his band in the name of Rock. Patrick hired a mercenary army of she-bitches to defend himself. The resulting battle was accidentally recorded on tape — and accidentally named Maladroit, and accidentally released on April 2, 2002. The enormous fans' response to the accidental album resulted in over half the population of Italy buying it within a day of its release, marking it as the Most Popular Album in One Day in Italy. Rivers and Patrick found themselves besieged by love letters from adoring (and possibly) female fans from around the world.
Brian didn't really do much here. He had another band or something. Nobody really knows.
The Made-Up Album[edit]
After returning from his quest to free the Japanese from carnivore robots by the year 3000, Rivers set on writing a new album to fix Weezer's reputation. Unfortunately, during a battle with Wilson, he was stabbed in his penis, draining the frontman of sexual lust, thus killing his ability to make music — what's Weezer without girls? Or what looks, and feels like girls? As Cuomo spent his days contemplating the musical future of himself and his band, he turned to MTV and the Disney Channel for inspiration. These hours of non-stop, pop-sessions made Pat Wilson scared about his oil company-like musical career, so he called up Hugh Hefner, and asked him if he could run an intervention for Cuomo in the form of a Playboy Mansion party.
With the intervention going on, and with many poorly-dressed, twenty-year-old-somethings running around the Playboy Mansion, all was looking towards a true return to form for Weezer. That was, until Rivers was given a guitar by an adoring fan, giving Rivers a way of creating "The Ultimate Pop Song". Now with the guitar, at the Playboy Mansion, and the fact that Cuomo no longer had a penis, he couldn't write songs about girls, which meant Cuomo would write a song named "Beverly's Hills", an ode to a lady with small breasts that resembled hills. And thus, Weezer was on their way to a new and fifth album.
With Rivers writing songs, Pat being bald, Scott Shriner looking like a douche, and Brian Bell stealing Cuomo's ex-groupies (and Jason Cropper not being a part of the band), it was all looking promising for the new Weezer release. Rivers' songwriting, however, started getting odd, since he still had no penis, and no way to write songs about familiar things — like girls. He then took influences from many abstract influences. Themes, or prominent features in some of these new songs, included the ode to literature ("Perfect Personification"), nursery rhymes ("This Is Such An Incy-Wincy-Spider"), he and his grandparents' love of LSD ("We Are All On Drugs"), shopping ("The Damage On Your Shopping Cart"), and Urarophilia ("Pardon Me for Drinking Pee").
The album was released through Walmart, MTV, American Apparel, and McDonald's — in a move Rivers said was:
| “ | Something everyone is doing; Britney, Billy Ray Cyrus, y'know... everyone! If The Beatles are bigger than God, we're bigger than motherfucking Buddha! | ” |
2008–2010[edit]
Red[edit]
After a failed attempt to overtake Buddhism, MTV, and popular culture, the band held an internal meeting in a housing project in Detroit, Michigan. They discussed various ways of turning Weezer from a failed religion, to one of the greatest establishments of all time. Wilson came up with the idea of hiring Jared from Subway to "slim down" the band, although this idea was dismissed as "odd" by the group. The location of subsequent meetings (Detroit), meant the band had started to smoke and deal drugs, pop caps, and light up cracka's asses.
The band got obsessed with the American television series The Wire, which resulted in Shriner selling his array of musical instruments, his wardrobe of tight-fitting clothes, and his stash of prestigious Columbian cocaine to buy over fifty different Fubu, Wu-Tang, and Eminem themed tracksuits. Shriner also furthered his vocabulary by adding "fuck", "bitch", "raggity ass", "sup nig?", and "y'all" to his vocabulary.
With Jason Cropper still not a part of Weezer, the band had a new found sense of 'cred'. This would give the band the idea for the album title, while the album cover also paid homage to the band's drug-centered habits and lifestyle. Despite the drug and 'urban-life' center album name, artwork, and song titles — the album sold poorly, with one member of the local African-American gang saying:
| “ | Dis shyt's fuckin' wack yo'. Dem dere crazy white bhoys can't rape, can't shoot, can't sell drugs, and now can't make a fuckin' albuhmm y'all'ear? | ” |
This comment would force the band to change their aesthetic once-a'-fucking-'gain.
Raditude[edit]
In 2009, Weezer released an album called Raditude. It had a jumping dog on the cover. Most believe that this dog pays tribute to Karl Koch, the band bitch. It contained songs called "I'm Your Daddy", "The Girl Got Hot", and "Can't Stop Partying", in which Lil' Wayne was a collaborator. At live shows, they wore jumpsuits, Wuggies, and fluro vests. At one show, Rivers even jumped on a trampoline.
The album only sold 2 copies. One copy was given to Paris Hilton, so that Karl Koch could get laid, and the other was sold to MTV to be used as a soundtrack to The Hills.
Hurley[edit]
Despite alienating many of their last remaining ten fans, Weezer set out to destroy their band image even more. This time, they would release another mindless pretty pop album nearly a few months after their former one. Rivers said the following about it: "Now that Weezer has become loved by less people then before, I think it's time to piss off our remaining fans with a totally random album I pulled out of my ass, after a night of eating pork and beans."
This 2010 album was dubbed Hurley. Being named after Hurley from the show Lost and using actors face as the album cover. On the topic of the cover, Rivers stated that he "loves big sweaty dudes."
The album features a lot of odd songs ranging from: "Where's My Sex?", "All My Friends Are Insects", "Queening Me", and "Throat Coat". Despite this wonderful (but also random material), none of the songs got any radio airplay — except as a secondary track to digital playlists piped into Las Vegas casinos. Many believed this was because;
- The songs may be too awesome since radio only plays shit, or
- The songs just suck more dick than Elton John.
Many also believe that the song names were chosen because they are the gang nicknames of Rivers' friends from prison. Due to a few months prior, Rivers was arrested for aiming a shotgun atop a building into a nearby black neighborhood while wearing a Ku Klux Klan uniform. After Rivers was let out of jail, he admitted in an interview that he was not an official member of the KKK, and had just read an article about them as a teenager. His uniform (he told The Boston Globe newspaper) was knitted out of his bedsheets. He told the press he did not want to be a member of the KKK, since his numerous applications to the Klan were rejected.
When Rolling Stone reviewed Hurley, it declared "Throat Coat" as The Best Weezer Song Title Since "Purple Testes (The Asphyxiation of Adam Ant)".
Death to Logical Release Dates[edit]
Being lazy, Karl compiled a group of Weezer B-Sides and Rarities and put them together. He then slapped on a random title, and released it for some extra pocket money, along with a Deluxe Edition of Pinkerton in late 2010 to compensate Weezer fans for having to listen and look at Hurley.
2011–2018[edit]
The Sex Change[edit]
After using the Delorean, Cuomo and his band travelled to the future with Marty Mcfly. They did so by sneaking into the back when Doc wasn't looking — causing a series of cosmic paradoxes. In the future, Rivers found a book praising the band's album The Sex Change which came out on September 11, 2012. However, when they returned to the present, it was 2013. This meant that the band was unable to make the bands best album according to the future, causing yet another paradox.
Everything Will Be Crappy in the End[edit]
After years of kowtowing to everyone, Weezer put kowtowing to full use by releasing Everything Will Be Crappy In The End. Besides from bringing in Ric Ocasuck to produce, as The Cars haven't had a hit in 30 years, Rivers dedicated the album to his best advertisers and friends, and even summoned up Leonardo DiCaprio, Elizabeth Taylor, and Ronald McDonald as inspirations.
"Smack In The Back" is an ode to Rivers' begging for forgiveness for all of his sins in the four years since the bands previous album. "Return To Ipecac" and "The Waste Land (The Bathroom Toilet Song)" are both instrumentals, that lives up to its name in vomitworthiness. Sandwiched in between the two songs is "No Name", in which Rivers says that he has been in a dream world for the past five years, and that he has been reincarnated into another Rivers Cuomo. "I've Had It Up To Here With Myself" is Rivers admitting that he spends more of his time thinking about the time he was at McDonald's and he had to eat a watercress sandwich after a Happy Meal made him sick.
"Eulogy For Weezer" is also an admission from Cuomo that Weezer should have passed the torch to Nickelback long ago. "Homely Girl" is a short song on how Rivers became a wall flower after his girlfriend dumped him for Justin Bieber. "Elizabeth Taylor" is a song dedicated to the star of Cleopatra, telling how she played Cleopatra and turns it into a drinking song at the end by revealing how many husbands and boyfriends Taylor had in her life. "DiCaprio" tells of Rivers looking for Leonardo DiCaprio on the net, but all he can find is DiCaprio's resume from Growing Pains, which is Rivers' favorite TV show. "Go Away, Please Go Away" is a song that is a conversation between Cuomo and Paula Patton about Robin Thicke.
"The American, British and Canadian Groups Are Taking Over" depicts that Rivers wants to play nice to Imagine Dragons, Bastille, and MAGIC! — but he wants to become the next Lady Godiva by declaring war on the groups that have taken over. "Ain't Got Nobody To Love Me" has Rivers thinking that he's the Maytag Man and wants to fix a washing machine, but he has to wait... and wait... and wait.
The music video for "Smack In The Back" shows Weezer auditioning for the remake of The Monkees' only movie Head, with Rivers playing Davy Jones, Pat as Mike Nesmith, Scott as Peter Tork, Karl Koch (the head kowtower and sucker-upper) as Micky Dolenz, and Brian playing Angelina Jolie as Rivers' love interest putting melted wax melts on his hair, and wiping them on Rivers' feet.
On tour; Brian Bell turned into Kim Kardashian, Pat Wilson played a huge drum set like Neil Peart but still only using bass drum, snare and floor tom, and Scott Shriner played bass. A few of Rivers' lady (and male) groupies formed a choir for "Foolish Cuomo", yet another song that lives up to its name. For "Go Away, Please Go Away" Rivers picked a random groupie (usually a Paula Patton look-a-like) from the audience and pretended he was Robin Thicke singing "Blurred Lines". Barry Manilow would have been proud of Rivers, since he mentioned that he's not a Big Mac and a McRib. The cover of Everything Will Be Crappy In The End, made homage to the second album in which Karl has made an appearance, but is now a massive woolly mammoth.
White and Daydream[edit]
After taking a two year break, Rivers and the gang got back together. This time around, Rivers stole an idea from The Beatles; The White Album. However, it was mainly influenced by The Beach Boys.
Rivers also took his third shot at a pop-rock album (even after all the hate Green and Raditude got). The band was criticised after the launch of Pacific Daydream for false advertising, as the band didn't really build a swingset in space.
2019–2021[edit]
Teal and Black[edit]
In 2019, after being harrassed on Twitter by a fourteen-year-old girl for a few months who wanted the band to cover the Toto song "Africa", Rivers gave in and recorded the song. As an extra slap in the face, the band also recorded nine other covers. Fans were not very happy, so in responce, Rivers told them to "Teal with it".
The actual 2019 album, The Black Album, was however, a 'banger' — for the first four songs, at least. After being called racist for the previous White Album, the band made a promise to include all races in future albums. The supposed 2024 album was said to be called the Indian Album, which will be followed by 2026's The Asian Album.
Van Human[edit]
In 2021, Weezer made their first proper two-part album with OK Human and Van Weezer. OK Human followed a more classical, orchestral arrangement, whereas Van Weezer is a more Van Helen, hard hitting rock album — according to Cuomo. Both albums are viewed as the bands best material since Blue and Pinkerton by fans.
In the music video for the song "End of the Start", Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter (from the Bill and Ted films) made a cameo for reasons unknown, although it could be because the song was featured in Bill & Ted Face the Music.
2022-Present[edit]
Seasonz[edit]
In 2022, Weezer did a four-part album just so that Rivers could say that he did twice the amount of work as 2021 — literally. It was first titled SZNS before being changed to SZNZ for some dumb reason. Each EP follows a theme for each season. Summer being more happy and upbeat, Autumn being a little moody, Spring sounding like magic, and Winter being cold and sad.
When the project was first announced, Australian Weezer fans were confused. They wondered if that they would get the Winter album during Summer, and the other season albums out of order. Rivers didn't comment on the issue, but when the Aussies heard SZNZ: Spring during Autumn, their question answered itself.
Yellow[edit]
In late 2022, Cuomo revealed that the 2023 Weezer album will be another self-titled coloured album. This time being yellow — to signify that the album is just going to be made with piss poor effort.
Personnel[edit]
Over its years in existence, Weezer has seen tremendous band loyalty with nearly all of its (un)original members still together. Many believe this to be, because of the members chill as f*ck attitudes.
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Awards and nominations[edit]
- Grammys
Since Weezer is a proper "professional" band, they have been invited to the Grammy Awards multiple times. However, whether or not the band are "good" is still up to debate. Despite this, Weezer have been nominated for five awards since 2006. They have only won one, due to a technicality.
| Year | Song/album | Grammy | Result |
| 2006 | "Beverly Hills" | Best Rock Song |  Lost because it's a shit song
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| 2009 | "Pork and Beans" | Best Music Video |  Won because no other band/artist made a music video that year
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| 2017 | Weezer (White Album) | Best Rock Album | Lost because the Academy didn't want to be seen as racist for awarding a white album as the winner
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| 2019 | Pacific Daydream | Best Rock Album | Lost because it was only nominated to fill out the five slots
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| 2022 | "All My Favourite Songs" | Best Rock Song | Lost not because it was up against Paul McCartney's "Find My Way", but since Taylor Hawkins of Foo Fighters died, they got sympathy points
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See also[edit]
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