Weezer

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Weezer
Shriner, Bell, Cuomo, Wilson
Shriner, Bell, Cuomo, Wilson
General information
origin Los Angeles , United States
Genre (s) Alternative rock , pop-punk
founding 1992
Website www.weezer.com
Current occupation
Rivers Cuomo
Guitar, keyboard , vocals
 Brian Bell (since 1993)
Bass , vocals
 Scott Shriner (since 2001)
Patrick Wilson
former members
Guitar, vocals
 Jason Cropper (1992-1993)
Bass, vocals
 Matt Sharp (1992-1997)
Bass, vocals
 Mikey Welsh (1997-2001, † 2011)

Weezer is an American alternative rock band from Los Angeles . It was founded on February 14, 1992. Her style is often described as college rock or guitar-heavy pop-punk .

Band history

Before the band was founded, singer Rivers Cuomo was enthusiastic about classic heavy metal , but also about the Beach Boys . He founded Weezer to combine both influences. The first guitarist Jason Cropper left the band while the first album was being recorded because his girlfriend was pregnant. Brian Bell, who had previously been the bass player in the band "Carnival Art", stepped in for him. The song Buddy Holly was originally intended only as a pop sound -Hit, but it was actually one, and Weezer were world famous. The music clip staged by Spike Jonze , which transferred the protagonists to an episode of the US television series " Happy Days ", contributed to this. Weezer also became known to a wider audience through the fact that the video for Buddy Holly was included on the Windows 95 CD-ROM. The first album was called "Weezer", but is now known as The Blue Album due to the color of the cover .

The second album, Pinkerton , was darker and less successful, but in retrospect is considered by many Weezer fans to be their strongest album. Commercially, however, it flopped so badly that the band subsequently ceased to exist for a few years. Especially the last lines of the song Butterfly at the end of the album (“I ain't never coming back, I'm sorry”) left a lot of space for speculation about a breakup of the group. Cuomo started studying at Harvard University , Matt Sharp (who fell out with Cuomo) founded " The Rentals ", Pat Wilson founded "The Special Goodness" and Brian Bell founded "The Space Twins".

In 2000 they found the new bassist Mikey Welsh († October 8, 2011) back together, and "Weezer", known as The Green Album , was recorded, which was again more poppy and likely to hit Pinkerton , especially the success of the song Island In The Sun showed. The album was a hit with fans and critics, and the band went on a world tour. However, Welsh was replaced by Scott Shriner in 2001 after a drugged suicide attempt due to a nervous breakdown . From then on, the line-up of the band remained unchanged.

The fourth album was Maladroit , on which Rivers Cuomo indulged his passion for 80s hard rock. However, it did not build on the success of the previous album and received little approval from critics.

On May 9, 2005, the release of the fifth Weezer album Make Believe was due, which became a sales success again thanks to the accompanying hit single Beverly Hills , but was otherwise cautiously received by the music press. Then Weezer went on tour with the Foo Fighters after a few festival appearances. After the tour ended, the band's status was initially unclear. A misleading interview with Rivers Cuomo in 2006, which was interpreted as a dissolution announcement, was later denied or clarified by himself.

On June 3, 2008, the sixth Weezer album was released, the third album with the simple name Weezer , known as The Red Album . The video for the first single Pork and Beans showed allusions and parodies of various videos from the video portal YouTube . On November 3, 2009, the seventh Weezer album Raditude was released, in which the band brought influences from synth-pop and hip-hop for the first time. It sold well, but like its predecessor, it met with little approval from many critics and fans.

On September 14th, 2010 the eighth studio album Hurley was released , with which the band wanted to return to their roots. Mostly received positively by the critics, it was the sixth album with which Weezer reached the top ten on the US Billboard charts.

On November 2, 2010, Weezer released the compilation Death to False Metal with ten songs that had not previously appeared on albums or B-Sides. A little later the band went back to the studio, but the recordings were stopped after a while because the producer Shawn Everett , who had already been responsible for Hurley , convinced the musicians that the song material was too weak.

Only in June 2014, after a long break, the band announced their ninth studio album Everything will be alright in the End , which, like the blue and green albums, was again produced by Ric Ocasek . The first single was Back to the Shack .

At the end of October 2015, Weezer released the single Thank God for Girls . A few days later, at the beginning of November of the same year, the next single Do you wanna get high? released, and in early April 2016 the tenth studio album was released, which was once again simply titled Weezer and was referred to by fans as The White Album . The record was mostly positively received. The eleventh album, Pacific Daydream , followed in October 2017, was marked by a move towards more poppy sounds and received mixed reviews.

2018 urging fans the band with an Internet campaign to the song Africa by Toto to covers. To everyone's amazement, the musicians actually gave in and released their version of the song in autumn 2018. In January 2019 they also surprisingly released The Teal Album , which, in addition to Africa, contained nine other covers of well-known songs from the 1980s and was largely enthusiastically received by the fans. The Black Album was released on March 1, 2019, again containing its own songs. In the same year they contributed a bonus track to the soundtrack of the film Frozen 2 with a cover version of Lost in the Woods .

Discography

Studio albums

year title Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements
(Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes) 		Remarks
DE DE AT AT CH CH UK UK US US
1994 Weezer (The Blue Album) DE61 (9 weeks)
DE 		AT47 (3 weeks)
AT 		- UK23
gold
gold

(21 weeks)UK 		US16
Triple platinum
× 3
Triple platinum

(78 weeks)US
First published: May 10, 1994
Sales: + 6,750,000
1996 Pinkerton DE65 (10 weeks)
DE 		AT41 (3 weeks)
AT 		- UK43
silver
silver

(2 weeks)UK 		US19th
platinum
platinum

(17 weeks)US
First published: September 24, 1996
Sales: + 1,600,000
2001 Weezer (The Green Album) DE21 (11 weeks)
DE 		AT15 (12 weeks)
AT 		- UK31
gold
gold

(8 weeks)UK 		US4th
platinum
platinum

(36 weeks)US
First published: May 15, 2001
Sales: + 3,600,000
2002 Maladroit DE29 (5 weeks)
DE 		AT22 (4 weeks)
AT 		CH44 (5 weeks)
CH 		UK16
silver
silver

(3 weeks)UK 		US3
gold
gold

(19 weeks)US
First published: May 14, 2002
Sales: + 900,000
2005 Make Believe DE32 (4 weeks)
DE 		AT17 (8 weeks)
AT 		CH58 (3 weeks)
CH 		UK11 (4 weeks)
UK 		US2
platinum
platinum

(47 weeks)US
First published: May 10, 2005
Sales: + 3,750,000
2008 Weezer (The Red Album) DE60 (3 weeks)
DE 		AT39 (5 weeks)
AT 		- UK21 (3 weeks)
UK 		US4 (23 weeks)
US
First published: June 3, 2008
Sales: + 625,000
2009 Raditude DE94 (1 week)
DE 		- - UK80 (1 week)
UK 		US7 (13 weeks)
US
First published: October 27, 2009
Sales: + 110,000
2010 Hurley DE63 (1 week)
DE 		- CH87 (1 week)
CH 		UK49 (1 week)
UK 		US6 (8 weeks)
US
First published: September 14, 2010
Sales: + 175,000
2014 Everything Will Be Alright in the End DE95 (1 week)
DE 		- CH57 (1 week)
CH 		UK37 (1 week)
UK 		US5 (6 weeks)
US
First published: October 7, 2014
2016 Weezer (The White Album) DE51 (1 week)
DE 		AT51 (1 week)
AT 		CH39 (1 week)
CH 		UK24 (2 weeks)
UK 		US4 (6 weeks)
US
First published: April 1, 2016
2017 Pacific Daydream - - - UK68 (1 week)
UK 		US23 (2 weeks)
US
First published: October 27, 2017
2019 Weezer (The Teal Album) - - - UK60 (1 week)
UK 		US5 (9 weeks)
US
First release: January 24th, 2019
cover album
Weezer (The Black Album) DE96 (1 week)
DE 		- CH82 (1 week)
CH 		UK73 (1 week)
UK 		US19 (1 week)
US
First published: March 1, 2019

Others

Weezer's songs have been used several times in music computer games, such as My Name Is Jonas in Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock , Say it Ain't so in Rock Band , Buddy Holly in SingStar Vol. 1 and Guitar Hero On Tour: Decades , and Why Bother? in Guitar Hero 5 . Furthermore Ruling Me in the racing game Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit and Buddy Holly on the Windows 95 included CD.

The song Memories is the trailer music for Jackass 3D and is also played at the very end of the film.

Web links

Commons : Weezer  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Interview with Outsider Artist Mikey Welsh. ( Memento from August 12, 2007 in the web archive archive.today ) Rock Salt Plum Review, spring 2007
  2. ↑ Chart sources: DE AT CH UK US
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h Worldwide album sales On statisticbrain.com, September 22, 2013, English. Retrieved November 1, 2015.