More about: Weezer

Few bands can provoke such fierce debate among their hardcore fans as Weezer. Since emerging from the Windows ‘95 CD-ROM with their Happy Days homage video for their hit ‘Buddy Holly’, the California pop-rockers have often flattered to deceive with albums that start strong with a big single, then lose their way. 

Recently they’ve hit a good vein of form, notably the one-two of 2014’s Everything Will Be Alright in the End and 2016’s The White Album achieving consensus as something of a return to their mid-90s form. Subsequent releases, and the preceding Make Believe and Raditude, have induced reactions varying from shrugs to ridicule but no Weezer record is without a few gems. With a hotly-tipped new baroque pop effort OK Human about to drop this week, their recent purple patch looks set to continue as Rivers tried his hand at different genres to mostly satisfying effect. 

Here we’ve tried to collect some of our favourites from the band that weren’t chosen to irritate radio playlists and may have fallen by the wayside. This list is not exhaustive, Weezer have an insane amount of music out there, and we’ll level with you, we doubt even we’ve listened to ALL of it.

'Tripping Down The Freeway'

Probably the most universally ridiculed album in Weezer’s discography, Raditude isn’t all bad. Aside from the catchy single ‘If You’re Wondering If I Want You To (I Want You To)’, there’s a few more that deserve to be re-examined. ‘Tripping Down The Freeway’ is a down-the-middle Weezer standard, starting from the chugging guitar chords, finding its way to a pleasant chorus that’s all about sticking together through thick and thin with your roadtripping partner. A classic Rivers bit of solo shredding and a half-time breakdown elevates the final refrain as the band surge down the home straight.

'Eulogy for a Rock Band'

Taking its place on Weezer’s brilliant 2014 return to form Everything Will Be Alright in the End, as it says on the tin this is a toast to one of the band’s idols, rumoured to be Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys. Rivers has been typically coy on the subject, “We'll tell you on the day he dies” he told a Reddit AMA. Picture who you want, it’s besides the point on a poignant, hard-rocking promise to carry the torch for as long as they can. The whole album is worth a listen, a proggy clutch of concept songs about fatherhood, legacy and love that has Rivers and Brian Bell doing their finest impressions of Freddie and Brian May.

'Wind in Our Sail'

The White Album is widely considered by many hardcore Weezer fans to the best thing the band have done since the turn of the century. With a litany of California surf jams getting the plaudits, this nautical-themed oddity is exactly the kind of idiosyncratic metaphor you persist with Rivers confounding output for. Ostensibly a song about the band trying to regain their footing after a decade of commercial decline, Rivers masks his words in references to Charles Darwin, the extinct Great Auks of Funk Island and the Myth of Sisyphus rolling his stone up the hill for eternity. Albert Camus concluded that despite this thankless task, he accepts his fate and “one must imagine Sisyphus happy.” Come on guys, being in Weezer can’t be that bad!

'Return to Ithaka'

The final part of the instrumental Futurescope Trilogy suite that completes Everything Will Be Alright in the End, ‘Return to Ithaka’ is a thrilling duel of Queen-aping guitar histrionics, with harmonics, pitch bends and doubled melodies exploding over one another as the band hurtle to the conclusion of their finest 21st century record.

'The Angel and The One'

Rising from a self-pitying plea reminiscent of the misery that defined cult-classic album Pinkerton, this cut from mid-career oddity The Red Album builds and builds into a crescendo worthy of the cheesiest 80s stadium rockers, complete with dramatic stabs of organ and windmill-baiting power chords. As the sections of the song meld together at its apex, the refrain becomes a moving, almost meditative prayer, “Peace, shalom, peace, shalom”. Bonus points for an early lyrical snippet of ‘Magic’, Rivers’ questionable 2010 collab with B.O.B.

'Why Bother?'

One of the more uptempo songs on 1996’s dark and twisted Pinkerton, this breakneck lament to romantic failure takes surf-rock sensibilities and cranks them through the band’s anguished instrumental thrash, highlighting the desperation in Rivers’ hopeless lyrics. After a squealing solo from guitarist Brian Bell, it’s gone before you know it, over and out at just over two minutes.

'Knockdown Dragout'

Nestled in the middle of The Green Album - Weezer’s return after five years in the wilderness - ‘Knockdown Dragout’ contains plenty of lyrical and musical nods to Green Day fan-favourite ‘Worry Rock’, which Weezer have covered in the past. They add gorgeous Beach Boys-esque harmonies to form what is a quintessential early career Weezer tune.

'Long Time Sunshine'

Included in the deluxe re-release of Pinkerton, this is musically the least Pinkerton-sounding song from the sessions, and was meant to close the record (and the scrapped Songs from the Black Hole rock opera that ended up in the trash can), before ‘Butterfly’ came along. A simple melody, major piano chords and plaintive lyrics paint a picture of Rivers questioning his decision to pursue rock music and dreaming of his carefree upbringing. The band join in a vocal round reprising the chorus of ‘Why Bother’ to close the track in a quite depressing manner. “Somebody's giving me a whole lot of money to do what I think I want to, So why am I still feeling blue?"

'Put Me Back Together'

Another tune from Raditude, this sickly sweet love song was penned with Tyson and Nick from All-American Rejects and the pitchy but oh-so addictive second chorus has their fingerprints all over it. The lyrics are very simple (“When I daydream we’re eating ice cream”) which suggests they maybe knocked this one out together in an hour, but even so it’s a hell of a hook.

'Trainwrecks'

Perhaps unfairly compared to Raditude due its chronological proximity and the recording style, Hurley is actually pretty consistent for a Weezer album. The first song written after the tour bus crash that cut short touring for Raditude (in which Rivers suffered cracked ribs and internal bleeding), this mid-tempo loser anthem is apparently written by Cuomo from the perspective of Puck from Shakespeare’s ‘idsummer Night’s Dream. “We're diggin' through the couch for cash, We're takin' cabs ‘cause both our cars are trashed, But we're still kickin' ass, We are trainwrecks!” Verily.

'QB Blitz'

Arriving midway through the harshly overlooked Pacific Daydream, ‘QB Blitz’ perhaps best captures what Weezer were going for on that record, conjuring a vision kind of cosmic tiki bar on a beach at the edge of the Milky Way...at least that’s what we assume they were going for.

The song deals with Cuomo’s disappointment that the critical acclaim and enthusiasm among fans for The White Album never translated to renewed mainstream recognition, specifically having partnered with new management for the release. It appears Rivers’ daring side has won out, with The Black Album and the upcoming OK Human avoiding the ‘classic’ Weezer sound to experiment further with the bands outer limits.

More about: Weezer