8 products
Pinkerton
Regular price $32.00 Save $-32.00Limited vinyl LP pressing includes 12 x 12 insert. Pinkerton is the second studio album by band Weezer, released on September 24, 1996. After abandoning plans for a rock opera titled Songs from the Black Hole, Weezer recorded Pinkerton between songwriter Rivers Cuomo's terms at Harvard University, where he wrote much of the album. To better capture their live sound, Weezer produced Pinkerton themselves, creating a darker, more abrasive album than their 1994 self-titled debut. Cuomo's lyrics express disillusionment with the rock lifestyle; the album is named after the character BF Pinkerton from Giacomo Puccini's 1904 opera Madama Butterfly, whom Cuomo described as an "asshole American sailor similar to a touring rock star". Like the opera, the album contains references to Japanese culture.
SZNZ: Winter
Regular price $24.00 Save $-24.00SZNZ: Winter, the final part in Weezer’s four-EP song cycle, continues the narrative started on SZNZ: Autumn, SZNZ: Spring and SZNZ: Summer bringing Pagan myths, Shakespeare, Catholic rituals, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, and more to life. Each SZNZ EP offers its own palette of colors, creatures, and emotions to explore. They were all created in real time, made in tandem with the season themselves. Once they’ve all been released, the EPs will create an incredible collection of some of Weezer’s best songs yet, no small feat for a band that never leaves the Zeitgeist.
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Weezer (Blue Album)
Regular price $32.00 Save $-32.00Weezer doesn't look like rock stars, its amusing name doesn't evoke stadium-heights glories, and the group's lyrics don't exude confidence or flash. For precisely these reasons, and the fact that the band's songs on their Ric Ocasek-produced 1994 self-titled debut are the stuff of air-guitar dreams and shout-it-out choruses, the quartet became ironic arena-rock stars equally celebrated by in-the-know hipsters and mainstream radio listeners.
Underdogs and misfits, Weezer emerged from Los Angeles, CA as nerdy kids that eschewed traditional party-hard ways in favor of studying Kiss records, engaging in conversations about old LPs, and playing Dungeons and Dragons. The band's awkwardness joyfully translates in the songs on their debut, largely concerned with jealous insecurities, pop culture, true-to-life heartbreak, common accidents, youthful misconceptions, and daydreaming.
Replete with urgent melodies, quirky confessional narratives, wry humor, and gargantuan hooks, Weezer (Blue Album) remains the best geek-rock record ever made. More than three-times platinum, the Blue Album claims an iconic cover that pays tribute to that of the Feelies' Crazy Rhythms. The picture – as well as the bubblegum-inspired content within – has become an indelible part of modern culture. And "My Name Is Jonas," "Say It Ain't So," "Buddy Holly," and "Undone (The Sweater Song)" are all modern classics.
Tracks
Weezer (Green Album)
Regular price $32.00 Save $-32.00Weezer's second self-titled album (2001) and third overall, collectively known as the Green Album, nearly never came to pass. The band had all but broken apart, with leader Rivers Cuomo choosing to go back to college and the other members dismayed at the initial reception to 1996's Pinkerton. Persuaded at the turn of the century to return to the concert stage, the foursome launched one of the most enduring comeback stories in history, and in the process, penned 75 songs, the choicest of which grace 2001's concise, tightly played Green Album.
That nearly everything on Green Album – from the cover to the producer (The Cars' Ric Ocasek) to sonics – reflects those of Weezer's blockbuster 1994 debut isn't merely coincidence. The quartet, not yet realizing that Pinkerton had already become a cult classic (and, soon after, would be hailed as one of the most prized albums of its generation), intentionally pursued a back-to-basics approach that echoed its roots. Unadorned simplicity, skyscraper-sized hooks, and short-but-sweet arrangements are the hallmarks here, each a signpost on how rock albums can work their way into a listener's head and provide limitless satisfaction.
Akin to its sibling efforts, Green Album wouldn't be the same devoid of Cuomo's lyrics, which exude charming personality and boyish awkwardness. Absent the heart-on-a-sleeve obviousness of the fare of Pinkerton, the material here echoes with a related emotional universality whereby romantic yearning, fear of rejection, and getaway fantasies spark with the winking promise of enthusiasm and attainment. There's a reason every passage remains so accessible; playfulness and wryness abound. Power-pop efforts don't come more perfect.