Weezer

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About

Weezer are a four-piece alternative rock band from Los Angeles, California. The band is fronted by guitarist, singer, and songwriter Rivers Cuomo, and features Pat Wilson on drums, Scott Shriner on bass, and Brian Bell on guitar. After debuting with their self-titled Blue Album in 1994, the band has released 11 total albums including several hit singles. The band has also demonstrated its fluency in online culture by including memes in their music videos on more than one occasion.

Career

Weezer formed in Los Angeles, California in 1992 with Matt Sharpe on bass.^[1] Their debut self-titled album, dubbed by fans The Blue Album, went quadruple platinum, making it their best selling record in the US. It featured hits including "Undone (The Sweater Song)," "Buddy Holly" and "Say It Ain't So." Their 1996 follow-up, Pinkerton, did not sell as well, but became a fan favorite over the following two decades. After a hiatus, the band returned with another self-titled album dubbed The Green Album in 2001. Around this time, Scott Shriner joined the band. Follow-up records include Make Believe, which included the single "Beverly Hills," The Red Album, Raditude, Hurley, Everything Will Be Alright In the End, The White Album and Pacific Daydream.

History

"Pork and Beans"

Weezer has demonstrated knowledge of online culture and particularly memes starting in 2008 with their video for "Pork and Beans" which featured references to memes such as Chocolate Rain, Chris Crocker, and All Your Base Are Belong to Us (shown below, left). In 2016, Weezer released the music video for "California Kids," which included a reference to Damn Daniel (shown below, right).

Toto Covers

In December of 2017, a teenager with the account handle @weezerafrica^[4] tweeted at Rivers Cuomo asking him to cover Africa by Toto.

The tweet became a joke campaign, and Noisey interviewed the fan, a 14-year old girl named Mary, behind the account.^[5] In May of 2018, Weezer responded, first with a cover of "Rosanna" by Toto, then "Africa (shown below).

Teal Album

On January 24th, 2019, Weezer surprise-released The Teal Album, an album of covers with their "Africa" cover as the first track.^[9] The full tracklist is as follows:

The album generated mixes responses on Twitter. Some were delighted to see the band embracing covers. User @ira expressed delight at the song's cover of "Mr. Blue Sky" (shown below, left). Other users were less impressed with the record. User @seanoneal joked that the band was going "full weddings and corporate events" (shown below, right).

Online Presence

Weezer has a wide presence on social media. The Weezer subreddit^[6] has over 11,000 subscribers. The band's Facebook page has over 3.3 million likes^[7] and their Twitter account has over 1.82 million followers.^[8]

Fortnite Island

On February 28th, 2019, Epic Games unveiled a "Weezer Island" in the game's Creative Mode at the launch of Fortnite's 8th season.^[10] The following day, Weezer tweeted about the announcement (shown below).

Rivers Cuomo has a documented history of loving Fortnite, and has tweeted about playing it with his daughter.^[10] New Weezer music off their upcoming Black Album plays on the island, as evidenced in a tweet by @m4tt (shown below).

Reputation

While Weezer were critically praised for The Blue Album and fans grew attached to that album and Pinkerton, their post-90s albums have not reached the same level of critical success. Make Believe in particular was critically maligned, receiving a scathing 0.4 rating from Pitchfork. Critics and fans generally agree that the band made significantly worse music after Pinkerton, with Raditude also being cited as a low point for the group.^[2]^[3]