Weezer

About Weezer

When they dropped their debut album in 1993, California band Weezer were the power pop belles at the grunge ball. With long haired, flannel-clad bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam ruling the charts, Weezer's skinny ties and thick glasses helped them stand out. It didn't hurt that their first album (untitled, but commonly referred to by fans as The Blue Album) was a solid collection of humorous, confessional guitar rock gems. On tracks like "The Sweater Song" and "Say It Ain't So" they discussed adolescent confusion and ambiguous relationships, a departure from conventional girl-chasing rock bands at the time. And with the innovative Happy Days inspired Spike Jonze video for their irresistible track "Buddy Holly," the band found instant mainstream success. But it was 1996's sophomore effort Pinkerton that cemented the band's enduring reputation as the discerning misfits' poets of choice. Rivers Cuomo revealed he had a gift for nuanced songwriting and dense guitar hooks. Weezer's Pinkerton is often cited by critics as laying the blueprint for the hybrid of lyrically sensitive and melodic punk that has since been dubbed "emo." Though the album had weak sales at first, it has since earned a place as a certified cult classic. Pinkerton was a loose concept record based on the opera Madame Butterfly but the band was sued by the Pinkerton detective agency for trademark infringement. Weezer disappeared until 2001-rumors flew that a depressed Rivers Cuomo was locked in his room recording and destroying numerous pop masterpieces-and they finally returned with 2001's Green Album and a beefier set of electric, riff-based pop. Weezer continued their string of mainstream hits with the classic rock inspired "Hash Pipe" and the tender "Islands In the Sun."