4. Songs From The Black Hole Demos

1. Blast Off! 2. Who You Callin’ Bitch? 3. Oh Jonas. 4. Please Remember. 5. Come to My Pod. 6. Oh No This Is Not For Me. 7. Superfriend. 8. She’s Had A Girl. 9. Dude, We’re Finally Landing (Good News!) 10. What Is This I Find? 11. Now I Finally See. 12. You Won’t Get With Me Tonight. 13. Longtime Sunshine.
Recorded January 1994 – August 1995 by Cuomo/Bell/Sharp/Wilson.

In the aftermath of The Blue Album‘s enormous – and, as likely as not, unexpected – success, Rivers and Weezer actually tried two distinct approaches when it came to the task of dealing with Second Album Syndrome. They differed hugely on the surface, although – as we’ll see – they shared more in common than might initially appear.

The First Big Idea was Rivers’ plan to write a sprawling sci-fi-themed “rock opera” concept album. Named Songs From The Black Hole, the album would tell the story of five young space cadets on a mission to the stars – with each of the five characters (three male, two female) voiced either by members of Weezer or friends of the band. If that sounds batshit insane, it’s probably because it was – but it also might just have been something brilliant.

Rivers started work on Songs From The Black Hole in late 1994, and in the first half of 1995 recorded a batch of demos. Intending for the songs to run into one-another in order to tell the story, in all he recorded nearly twenty tracks – but as a number of them were deliberately shorter sections of under a minute, the total length of the demo album, clocking in at just under thirty-five minutes, works out at around half the likely length of the finished product.

Nevertheless, it’s possible to get a sense from these demos – which remained buried away from fandom for around a decade, but have more recently emerged first online, and then via Rivers’ Alone series of solo rarity compilations – how the album would have turned out from a song-writing point of view, if not stylistically (as, with the exception of songs that would later be re-used, Rivers’ raw demos are likely far away from the heavily-produced, multi-layered intent of the final product). Easily the most famous track – perhaps because it leaked first – is the intended opener, “Blast Off”:

Click here to view the embedded video.

While the final version would almost certainly have been drenched in keyboards, this recording does show how Rivers was already moving towards a heavier rock sound than on Blue. The style of riff employed is one that was fairly new to Weezer at the time, but can be seen showing up frequently at later points in their career – indeed, the otherwise-lamentable “Beverly Hills” doesn’t feel a million miles away from it.

Of course, this version – like all the other demos – suffers from the fact that Rivers is singing the parts of all the lead characters. This is also evident on the otherwise-magnificent “You Won’t Get With Me Tonight” – probably the most complete, individual pop song on the album as it exists – on which we therefore have to imagine a female singer like Rachel Haden playing one of the duetting roles:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Frenetic, ridiculously catchy and hugely enjoyable, “YWGWMT” (along with the long-time fan favourite track “Superfriend”) is among the strongest evidence for just how good SFTBH might have been. By the same token, none of these superficially straightforward pop songs really show off the more esoteric nature of the project. Aside from the shorter vignettes – which are highly variable in quality in their demo form – perhaps the song that does this the best is one of the few to feature the rest of the band on its recording. “Longtime Sunshine” exists in various demo versions – usually just recorded by Rivers – but the version released as a bonus track on the Pinkerton deluxe edition seems closest to the one that might have wound up being Black Hole‘s final track:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The closing sequence, in which various band members – each, we can presume, playing their “characters” – reprise a selection of different songs from earlier in the album, overlaid and harmonised, is somewhat raw in its execution here; but nevertheless, it’s pretty clear that the intended final result is something pretty exciting and unlike anything the band had tried before. We can reasonably expect that there would have been plenty more of that sort of thing dotted throughout the record.

Songs From The Black Hole was dead as a project by the time Rivers enrolled at Harvard university in Autumn 1995 – losing interest in the idea and shifting towards a different style of songwriting and recording. Its influence on the band wasn’t completely lost, however – as we’ll see, a number of tracks that started out as SFTBH cuts (and hence missing from the above tracklist) would appear later, and fan interest in the album burned throughout the late 2000s to the extent that a huge array of self-put-together takes on the album (some limiting themselves to the demo album alone, others working in album tracks and even songs by Matt Sharp’s side-project The Rentals) exist online.

Weezer, though, had other business to be getting on with. Like, for example, one of the greatest albums in alt-rock history…

5. Pinkerton

1. Tired of Sex. 2. Getchoo. 3. No Other One. 4. Why Bother? 5. Across the Sea. 6. The Good Life. 7. El Scorcho. 8. Pink Triangle. 9. Falling For You. 10. Butterfly.
Recorded September 1995-June 1996 by Cuomo/Bell/Sharp/Wilson. Self-produced. Released September 1996.

If you chart Weezer’s progression from 1994 to 1996 with the inclusion of Songs From The Black Hole – which, of course, our retrospective position allows us to do – then it’s not entirely difficult to see where Pinkerton comes from. If you don’t have the benefit of that context, however, then it’s fair to say that hearing “Tired of Sex” as the first new track since the Blue Album is… well, it’s something of a shock. A shock that punches you square in the bollocks. If you have them.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Maybe this sudden, jarring shift in style explains why Pinkerton was so badly reviewed on release – and it was, to the extent that Rolling Stone included it in their “Worst Albums of 1996″ list. Except it doesn’t explain it, really, because surely only somebody without ears could call Pinkerton anything other than a masterpiece.

Perhaps, for some, the raw crunch of those first couple of tracks – the astonishingly good “Tired of Sex” with its never-again-matched-by-the-band guitar solo, and the admittedly slightly less astonishingly good “Getchoo” – were just too much of a hurdle to get over. Which is a shame, because get past them, and you’re left with an album that – as short, and tight, and raw as it is – shows Rivers at the absolute height of his songwriting powers. There’s depth and nuance to his lyrics that he’d rarely find again, wrapped up in melody that climbs free of the shackles of its deliberately underproduced form. “No Other One”, for example, is simply gorgeous:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The first four tracks all started life as Songs From The Black Hole demos – although “Tired of Sex” in particular is quite clearly the most personal track Rivers has written up to this point, a lament about his new rock-star lifestyle originally intended to be sung via the autobiographical mouthpiece character of Jonas on the concept album, but ultimately performed directly in the first-person. Indeed, despite dating from an earlier aborted project, all four of these tracks link quite well to the remainder of the album by virtue of being written in the highly personal style first experimented with on the likes of “Say It Ain’t So”. Nevertheless, there’s a clear break when the album wrenches into its second half, with a track even more unlike anything else heard from them before.

As the emotional peak of an album said to have inspired countless angsty-emotional-bands-with-guitars in the early 2000s, it could be said that “Across the Sea” has a lot to answer for. None of the subsequent context, however, should detract from the impact of the song. The lyric is downright bizarre – a Rivers wracked with self-loathing, responding with almost uncomfortable candour to a letter apparently written by a fan in Japan – but in the vocal he finds a vulnerability that draws the listener onside. Musically, the track hinges on one of the band’s most memorable choruses in the first half, before building to the kind of crescendo they’d already patented so well on the heavier moments of the first album.

“Across the Sea” is just the beginning, however, of a pretty remarkable sequence of tracks, which showcase the band at the unassailable height of their powers. “The Good Life” is simply furious, as Rivers kicks out at the world from the position in he’d spent much of late 1995: laid up, immobile, following surgery to adjust the length of one of his legs (no, really). Then there’s “El Scorcho”, the album’s one Proper Great Pop Single, which should have been as big as “Buddy Holly”, but whose performance upon release instead became a microcosm for the general indifference that greeted the album as a whole. Which is baffling, because… well, because this:

Click here to view the embedded video.

This is followed by the equally fantastic “Pink Triangle” – almost certainly the best song ever written about a man accidentally falling in love with a lesbian – and “Falling For You”, perhaps the most complex song musically that the band had recorded at that point. Indeed, the famous line “What could you possibly see in little old three-chord me?” is somewhat ironic given the sheer volume of chord progressions and key changes employed throughout.

And then… there’s “Butterfly”. Titled after the Puccini opera whose character also named the album, it closes the record in unexpected, deliberately anti-climactic fashion. The previous nine tracks might have suggested that an “Only in Dreams” mark 2 might round off proceedings – but instead there’s just Rivers and an acoustic guitar, and a raw, confessional lyric. While perhaps jarring the first time the album is heard, it feels like a necessary moment of reflection and breathing space, especially after the frenetic pair of tracks that precede it.

And so ends Pinkerton, a thirty-four-and-a-half minute explosion of contradictions, loosely themed around Puccini’s opera but more openly concerned with themes of longing, desire and frustration. It marked out the band as unquestionably brilliant talents; and yet, perhaps because it’s not a friendly album the way the first was, it was greeted with disregard at best, and outright hostility at worst, upon its release. That consensus had seen a dramatic reappraisal by the time the band re-emerged in 2001¹ – the year the record was finally certified Gold – but listening to it again now, it’s hard to see how it was ever anything other than an instant classic.

6. Pinkerton B-Sides/Miscellany

1. You Gave Your Love To Me Softly. 2. Devotion. 3. Waiting on You. 4. I Just Threw Out The Love Of My Dreams. 5. Getting Up and Leaving. 6. I Swear It’s True. 7. Tragic Girl.
Recorded September 1995-June 1996 by Cuomo/Bell/Sharp/Wilson.

The b-sides on the Pinkerton singles – chart flops, every single one – are an interesting bunch. They actually share a number of characteristics in terms of the style and sound – so much so that in a way, they feel like a Pinkerton that could have been, if the band had continued to write “cleaner” pop songs while still shifting into the slightly edgier sound they’d developed.

Click here to view the embedded video.

One of the tracks, “I Just Threw Out The Love Of My Dreams”, actually was from the album that could have been – intended originally as a Songs From The Black Hole piece, in the version that was recorded for the Good Life EP it probably offers the closest representation of how that album might have sounded, thanks to the addition of heavy keyboard backing and guest vocals from Rachel Haden.²

“Waiting On You” and “Devotion” are both pretty solid romantic laments from Rivers – I personally much prefer the former, but I know the latter has its fans – but there’s also a lovely, short, punchy slice of pop-rock called “You Gave Your Love To Me Softly”. The song was originally recorded for another film soundtrack – in this case the 1995 teen comedy-drama Angus – after an earlier song, “Wanda” was rejected.³ But in a reversal of what happened with “Susanne” a year or so before, the generally-preferred version (by fans and the band) was actually the one recorded among the Pinkerton sessions and released as a b-side – slightly slower-paced, but with an altogether beefier feel.

Click here to view the embedded video.

In 2010, the Pinkerton Deluxe Edition reissue saw the release of two tracks that had originally been intended to feature as B-sides on a single release of “Pink Triangle”, which was ultimately shelved following the poor chart performances of “El Scorcho” and “The Good Life” (not to mention the album itself).⁴ The two songs have a shared heritage, both also originally having been under consideration as Blue Album cuts. While still incomplete, the Pinkerton era demos show them in a closer-to-final form. “Getting Up And Leaving” is the stronger, in my view, with a catchier hook than the slightly plodding “I Swear It’s True”; but neither especially stand out ahead of the album tracks on either of the first two albums.

Far more of a pleasant surprise was the final track on Pinkerton Deluxe, “Tragic Girl”. Given how meticulous the writing and recording logs of Weezer’s song history were, it was astonishing that this track, recorded very late in the Pinkerton sessions,⁵ was basically forgotten about by just about everybody until it was dug up for the re-release. It’s magnificent. While its original purpose isn’t a matter of record, lyrically at least it fits very clearly in with Pinkerton‘s themes, and stylistically it does actually feel like a pretty strong capstone for the album – it would slot neatly in after “Falling For You”. It’s my guess, therefore, that it was originally considered as the album closer, but later replaced by Rivers with “Butterfly”.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Either way, though, what it does serve pretty neatly as now is the “final word” on the Pinkerton era of Weezer – the last discovered recording, the last track on what will presumably be the definitive re-release of the album, and what’s more, perhaps the most holistic single-track representation of that style. And in a way, it’s quite nice to have a track that gives a sense of closure to that whole phase – because, as we’ll see next time, following Pinkerton‘s failure and the band’s near-dissolution, it would be a very different Weezer that would later emerge, to a very different audience…

Weezerology will continue with Part Three, Bein’ Green… hopefully a bit sooner this time!

Weezer. Alternative rock band from Los Angeles, California, specialising (mostly) in melodic power-pop, usually with a romantic lyrical bent. Formed in 1992, with a lineup that has consisted of Rivers Cuomo (vocals and guitar, 1992-present), Patrick Wilson (drums, 1992-present), Matt Sharp (bass and vocals, 1992-1998), Brian Bell (guitar and vocals, 1993-present), Jason Cropper (guitar and vocals, 1992-1993), Mikey Welsh (bass and vocals, 1998-2001) and Scott Shriner (bass and vocals, 2001-present). Primary name associated with the phrase “geek rock”, and the most direct influence on the late ’90s/early 2000s US popular emo-core movement (Jimmy Eat World, The Get Up Kids, Saves the Day etc.).

They’ve been basically my favourite band since I started listening to them with a vengeance in mid-2000, but I haven’t really written much about them (a couple of track-by-track reviews aside) since I abandoned my surprisingly-popular fansite, WeezerfansUK, about eight or nine years ago. That’s changing with this blog project, in which I’m listening to every one of their songs, in chronological order, and writing about them on an era-by-era basis. If you want a full tracklist and an explanation of the self-imposed rules, check out the introductory post – but if you’re ready to get on with the project, then read on.

(And feel free to do a listen of the albums – or a re-listen, if you’re a fan – yourself, and join in with your comments, if you fancy it. I’ve tried to make this as accessible as possible both to long-time fans, and to those who don’t know much about the band but might find it an interesting read, so here and there you’ll find embedded Youtube songs so you can hear some of the things I’m talking about.)

1. The Kitchen Tapes & Early Demos

1. Thief, You’ve Taken All That Was Me. 2. Let’s Sew Our Pants Together. 3. Paperface. 4. Lullaby for Wayne.
Recorded August 1992 – September 1993 by Cuomo/Cropper/Sharp/Wilson/Bell.

Throughout 1992 and 1993, the newly-formed Weezer – Rivers Cuomo, Matt Sharp, Jason Cropper and Pat Wilson – recorded three distinct sets of demos at Rivers and Matt’s home in Santa Monica, LA. The middle-most of these, known as The Kitchen Tapes (by virtue of having been recorded… er, in the kitchen), was the most well-known – and unlike the one that followed it (which saw the band honing a handful of their preferred tracks), it featured a few tracks that wouldn’t be carried forwards. A number of Blue Album songs were also included on this tape, but in the interests of doing this thing properly, I’ll skip over them and discuss them when we get to the album itself.

Nevertheless, the three songs we’re left with – “Thief, You’ve Taken All That Was Me”, “Let’s Sew Our Pants Together” and “Paperface”, are of strong historical interest. Although not brought forwards onto the album, they’re still quite reflective of where Weezer’s sound lay in their early days. There’s a strong ear for melody (especially on “Let’s Sew Our Pants Together”), while the yearning tone that would characterise Rivers’ early lyrics is most discernable on “Thief…”, which to me is the standout of the three songs:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Perhaps the “actual” Weezer song it’s most similar to is “The World Has Turned And Left Me Here”, which was also among the earliest tracks demoed. This similarity, in fact, could explain why it was left out of the album sessions proper. Meanwhile, the last of the three, “Paperface”, is something of a fan favourite – but it’s also the least “Weezerish” of the lot, instead betraying Rivers’ earlier interest in heavier rock. It’s a fun, fast-paced number, but it’s easy to see why it didn’t warrant inclusion as the band honed in on their distinct style. It’s also interesting to note, on all three tracks, the different vocal approach that Rivers takes – it’s more whispery in the main, but with a harsher edge, than he’d later employ on the generally more harmonious album proper.

In late summer 1993, Weezer went into the studio to record what would become The Blue Album. The earliest sessions included a handful of additional tracks that were dropped after the first demo stage; some were picked up at later dates, so we’ll discuss these at the relevant time, but one song – “Lullaby for Wayne” – was never attempted again. Although slower than “Paperface”, it’s got a similarly heavy edge – which may also explain why it didn’t make the album – and is also somewhat more serious in lyrical subject matter (although, perhaps deliberately, the question of whether it’s actually about a particular real-life school shooting has always been left vague).

2. Weezer (aka The Blue Album)

1. My Name Is Jonas. 2. No-One Else. 3. The World Has Turned And Left Me Here. 4. Buddy Holly. 5. Undone: The Sweater Song. 6. Surf Wax America. 7. Say It Ain’t So. 8. In The Garage. 9. Holiday. 10. Only In Dreams.
Recorded August-September 1993 by Cuomo/Sharp/Wilson/Bell. Produced by Ric Ocasek. Released May 1994.

There are a handful of songs for which I know exactly where I was the first time I heard them. “Buddy Holly” is one of them (sitting in a parked car in Formby with Simon Mayo’s Radio 1 show on, if you’re wondering). This perfectly-constructed, immortally-catchy nugget of a pop song has remained permanently in my head ever since – and although it would take me a few years to get around to actually listening to any more Weezer (on the rare occasions I bought or was gifted albums at that age, they were usually Blur records), hearing the song for the first time was a hugely significant moment in my personal musical taste. And eighteen years later, I’m still not tired of it.

Click here to view the embedded video.

“Buddy Holly” serves as a strong microcosm for the rest of the album as a whole: carefully wrought, hugely slick, and surprisingly confident for a band at this stage of their career. It meshes the sunny power-pop that Rivers was capable of writing so effortlessly (and which producer Ric Ocasek could make sound so finely polished) with his younger self’s harder-rock sensibilities – so there are memorable guitar crunches and outstanding solos all over the shop. Nothing ever feels accidental, however – even all the feedback noise seems very carefully placed for maximum effect.

Does this apparent lack of spontaneity harm The Blue Album, however? Is everything a little too carefully polished – to an almost cynical extent? It’s an accusation you could almost certainly level at later Weezer at times (and I will, trust me), but at this stage… I don’t think so. It’s merely a band very quickly, and very confidently, finding a distinctive sound at which they’re extremely good. It’s especially impressive that they managed this despite changing lineup partway through the sessions – with Jason Cropper leaving for family reasons, and being replaced by Brian Bell, formerly the bassist in a band called Carnival Art.¹

The lyrical tone of the album is as consistent as the musicality. A recurring theme is of Rivers as an awkward, lonely outsider, looking in on things – most notably, of course, on “In the Garage” (lyrics about Dungeons & Dragons and the X-Men’s Kitty Pryde and Nightcrawler turning the band on to a generation of similarly alienated nerds), but also the gentle yearning of  ”The World Has Turned And Left Me Here” and the altogether more pronounced yearning of “Say It Ain’t So”. The latter prefigures Pinkerton somewhat, in that it involves Rivers writing directly about his own personal life: specifically, his fear that alcohol was to break up the marriage of his mother and step-father (the “Stephen” of the song’s lyrics) as it had with his father (who did indeed “find Jesus”, becoming a bishop in Germany years after having initially lost contact with Rivers).

Click here to view the embedded video.

Blue, then, is a remarkably assured record: album tracks that for many other bands would be little more than forgettable filler, like “Surf Wax America”, “The World Has Turned…” and “Holiday”, are rock-solid pop songs in their own right, and you feel that almost any of the ten cuts here (with the possible exception of “No-One Else” and its chugging, awkwardly-ironic lyrics) could have stood out as a single. Yet for all this polished consistency, it does contain a couple of flashes of idiosyncrasy.

“Undone: The Sweater Song” manages to use the polished production, and a ridiculously catchy chorus, to mask the fact that it’s actually a completely batshit insane track. Each of the two actual “verses” (themselves only consisting of barely-sensical two-word lines) is preceded by an instrumental segment, over which a snippet of conversation² is played. And the lyrics are, ostensibly, about the gradual unravelling of a woollen sweater. All things considered, the Spike Jonze-directed video – in which the band mime badly to the song in slow motion against a blue backdrop before being joined by a random assortment of running dogs – is somewhat apt for the tone of the thing.

Both “Buddy Holly” and “Undone” were singles – and in an era in which people still sat in front of music TV and watched the videos that were chosen and put before them, they consequently became extremely familiar even while not being huge chart hits (although “Buddy Holly”, of course, attracted huge waves of attention thanks to its marvellous Happy Days themed video being featured on the Windows 95 CD as an early demonstration of PCs’ multimedia capabilities). Potentially less familiar (at least to those of you who don’t avidly follow the band) is the album’s closing track, and the second of the two more unconventional moments, “Only In Dreams”.

Click here to view the embedded video.

“Only In Dreams” is distinctive for two main reasons: firstly, Matt Sharp’s hugely memorable bass line (which drones consistently for almost the entire track, before kicking into a higher-paced version of the same melody later on), and secondly, the track’s length. Early demos of the track clocked in around five minutes, and faded to a quiet conclusion at that point. It was still a great-sounding song, with that terrific chorus, but it never quite kicked into the truly epic beast it would become. The album version – aside from being a much-cleaned-up production – pans out in much the same way for those fist five minutes, but the original end point is now the cue for a quite monumental crescendo, in which the now-quietened instruments increase in tempo and volume. This results in a spectacular climax just short of seven minutes, where on a single beat everything comes crashing back in. It’s a spine-tingling moment, and even after having heard the song hundreds of times – even after seeing the band do it live, with an explosion of confetti and lighting at the climactic second that still ranks as one of the most purely joyous moments I’ve ever experienced – I get goosebumps every single time.

So, yes. The Blue Album. It’s quite a good debut.

3. Blue Album B-Sides

1. Mykel and Carli. 2. Susanne. 3. Jamie. 4. My Evaline
Recorded April 1993-June 1994 by Cuomo/Cropper/Sharp/Wilson/Bell.

Ah, for a time when Weezer actually recorded distinct individual songs as the B-sides for their singles. With the exception of “My Evaline” – a daft and fun little barbershop cover – the three Blue era B-sides are outstanding tracks. Though none of them were recorded during the album sessions, all could quite happily fit on the record – and at least two could have stood out as genuine hit singles of their own.

In fact, “Jamie” was originally intended as a single. Recorded in Spring 1993, when Cropper had yet to be replaced by Bell, it was planned as a debut 7″ release – but for reasons unknown, these plans were shelved, and the track didn’t see light until July 1994, two months after the release of the album, when it was featured on a Geffen Records compilation called DGC Rarities 1. It got a wider release here in the UK, however, as the B-side to “Buddy Holly” – which is where I first heard it. It’s a gorgeous song, written as an affectionate tribute to Jamie Young, the band’s first attorney.³

In fact, it’s interesting to note that – again with the exception of “My Evaline” – all the Blue b-sides were written in tribute to friends of the band. “Mykel and Carli”, however, would ultimately have an altogether more poignant context associated with it. Originally written in early 1993 as a song called “Please Pick Up The Phone”, it was later rewritten and demoed as “To Mykel and Carli (From a High School Friend)”, and finally just as “Mykel and Carli”, in honour of Weezer’s two biggest fans. Mykel and Carli Allan were sisters who had followed the band from their earliest days, and ended up responding to fan letters (such as sending out Blue Album lyric sheets) in those pre-Internet days, before setting up the official Weezer fan club itself. The song was trialled during the Blue Album sessions, but the band didn’t hit on a version they were happy with until the 1994 “b-sides session” produced the track that was released as a flip on “Undone”.

Tragically, in 1997, Mykel and Carli were killed – along with their younger sister Trista – in a car crash on the way from a Weezer show in Colorado. Naturally, the song – originally just a touching gift from Rivers to his friends – has taken on a much more mythical status since then, most powerfully demonstrated by this incredibly moving solo performance by Rivers at a later benefit show for the sisters’ family.

I’ve left for last what is undoubtedly my favourite of the early B-sides – and, in fact, one of my favourite Weezer songs of all. It’s also the song that’s pretty much responsible for my getting into the band in the first place – since, although I bought and loved “Buddy Holly” back in 1994, I’d never actually listened to the album until the summer of 2000, when I picked it up at a reduced price (in a record shop in the Dutch town of Delft) on the offchance it might have “Susanne” on it. It didn’t – but naturally I loved it anyway, and the rest is history.

Why did I want to hear “Susanne” again so badly? Because I’d heard it over the closing credits of Kevin Smith’s Mallrats, and it was absolutely bloody fantastic. One of the band’s customarily brilliant forays into a 6/8 time signature,⁴ and another tribute to a helpful friend (this time a particularly dedicated A&R rep at Geffen) it’s outstandingly, ridiculously melodic (with harmonies drawn from Rivers’ love of the Beach Boys), and life-affirmingly joyous. There are actually two versions – the original was used as one of the “Undone” b-sides, but the song was remixed (and beefed-up/improved considerably) for use in Mallrats. Here it be:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Listening back to the first couple of years of Weezer’s output in order is an undeniably pleasant experience. The band had a clearly defined sound and style, were bursting with creativity – if sounding a little samey on a track-to-track basis – and just about everything they played burst forth with unfettered joy. They were confident in their own musicality, and yet endearingly awkward and unassuming figures at the same time. In short, they were a band it was very, very easy to fall in love with. And a band you could never imagine falling out of love with.

Oh, how little we knew.

Weezerology will continue with Part Two, The Butterfly Effect… soon.

WHAT? A blog-based listening project that will involve going through (just about) every single Weezer song, in chronological order, and charting the evolution (or, in some cases, devolution) of the band’s songwriting and recording styles.

WHY? My favourite band for over a decade, Weezer continue to fascinate me even as they continue their slide towards being one of the music industry’s biggest running jokes. Their recent recording output has been baffling, bizarre and – in the main – borderline unlistenable, yet there’s something about them that means they can never wholly be written off, and even the worst albums contain nuggets of merit. I want to examine why that is, as well as looking at why and how they’ve got to this stage in the first place. I also find it fascinating to look at the surprisingly high number of “albums that never were”, and compare them with the official eight albums that have seen release.

HOW? Rather than taking each song on a detailed one-by-one basis (it’s been done, and with over 150 songs to get through it’d take bloody ages), I’ll look at blocks of songs in separated “eras” – each centred around a particular album but also taking in things that might have gone on in the year or so either side of it.

WHEN? Part one, spanning the band’s earliest demos and debut The Blue Album, will go up at some point in the next couple of weeks. After that… periodic, depending on how quickly I get through them and (especially) how depressed I get around the time of Raditude. Monthly, maybe?

I hope it’ll be interesting – especially for those of you who actually like the band, but maybe for some of you who don’t as well. I’ll try and include song links here and there so that readers who don’t know the material I’m talking about can sample the important bits. And if you are interested, below the jump is the full list of songs I’ll be tackling…

Kitchen Tapes & Blue Demos
Thief, You’ve Taken All That Was Me
Let’s Sew Our Pants Together
Paperface
Lullabye for Wayne

The Blue Album
My Name Is Jonas
No-One Else
The World Has Turned And Left Me Here
Buddy Holly
Undone
Surf Wax America
Say It Ain’t So
In The Garage
Holiday
Only In Dreams

Blue Album B-Sides
Mykel and Carli
Susanne
Jamie
My Evaline

Songs From The Black Hole (Rivers Demos)
Blast Off!
Who You Callin’ Bitch?
Oh Jonas
Please Remember
Come to My Pod
Oh No This Is Not For Me
Superfriend
She’s Had A Girl
Dude, We’re Finally Landing (Good News!)
What Is This I Find?
Now I Finally See
You Won’t Get With Me Tonight
Longtime Sunshine

Pinkerton
Tired of Sex
Getchoo
No Other One
Why Bother?
Across the Sea
The Good Life
El Scorcho
Pink Triangle
Falling For You
Butterfly

Pinkerton B-Sides/Miscellany
You Gave Your Love To Me Softly
Devotion
Waiting On You
I Just Threw Out The Love Of My Dreams
Getting Up and Leaving
I Swear It’s True
Tragic Girl

Hiatus Tracks
American Girls
Velouria
Everyone
Trampoline

Summer Songs 2000
O Girl
On the Edge
Preacher’s Son
Superstar
The Sister Song
Too Late To Try
My Brain

The Green Album
Don’t Let Go
Photograph
Hash Pipe
Island in the Sun
Crab
Knock-Down Drag-Out
Smile
Simple Pages
Glorious Day
O Girlfriend
I Do

Green Album B-Sides
Teenage Victory Song
Oh, Lisa
Always
Sugar Booger
Brightening Day
Starlight

The Alternative Maladroit (2001/2002 demos)
Ain’t Got Much Time
Serendipity
Broken Arrows
Don’t Pick On Me
Listen Up
Zep Song
Your Room
Mr Taxman
Porcupine
How Long
Change The World
Saturday Night
High Up Above
Sandwiches Time
We Go Together
Puerta Vallarta

Maladroit
American Gigolo
Dope Nose
Keep Fishin’
Take Control
Death and Destruction
Slob
Burndt Jamb
Space Rock
Slave
Fall Together
Possibilities
Love Explosion
December
Living Without You

Album 5 Demos
Mo’ Beats
Private Message
Misstep
Booby Trap
Modern Dukes
Untenable
Fontana
She Who Is Militant
Prodigy Lover
Mansion of Cardboard
Queen of Earth
Hey Domingo
The Organ Player
Sacrifice
Mad Kow
Running Man
367
The Victor
Acapulco
Lullaby

Make Believe
Beverly Hills
Perfect Situation
This Is Such A Pity
Hold Me
Peace
We Are All On Drugs
The Damage In Your Heart
Pardon Me
My Best Friend
The Other Way
Freak Me Out
Haunt You Every Day

“The Fallen Soldiers”
I Don’t Want Your Loving
Blowin’ My Stack
Losing My Mind
I’m A Robot

Pre-Red Album
Turning Up The Radio
The Odd Couple
Autopilot

The Red Album
Troublemaker
The Greatest Man That Ever Lived
Pork and Beans
Heart Songs
Everybody Get Dangerous
Dreamin’
Thought I Knew
Cold Dark World
Automatic
The Angel and the One

Red Album Bonus & Miscellany
Miss Sweeney
Pig
The Spider
King
It’s Easy
I Can Love

Raditude
(If You’re Wondering if I Want You To) I Want You To
I’m Your Daddy
The Girl Got Hot
Can’t Stop Partying
Put Me Back Together
Tripping Down the Freeway
Love is the Answer
Let It All Hang Out
In the Mall
I Don’t Want To Let You Go

Raditude Bonus & Miscellany
Get Me Some
Run Over By A Truck
The Prettiest Girl In The Whole Wide World
The Underdogs
Turn Me Round
The Story of My Life
I Hear Bells
Represent

Hurley
Memories
Ruling Me
Trainwrecks
Unspoken
Where’s My Sex?
Run Away
Hang On
Smart Girls
Brave New World
Time Flies

Finally, a few quick notes for people who might actually know what I’m on about:

• With the exception of the Rivers SFTBH demos (included due to their importance), this is full-band material only. No solo stuff or side projects – no Rentals, no Space Twins, no Special Goodness. You may note that Homie have snuck in there, though. We’ll discuss that when I come to it.
• No covers, either. This is about Weezer’s songs only.
• Wherever possible I’ve tried to include every song for which either an official release or a leaked (officially or unofficially) demo has occurred. There may be one or two I’ve missed here and there, or not been able to get hold of for some reason. There are of course countless songs that the band have written and recorded that we’ve never heard, however.
• Some songs have found their way into multiple recording sessions over the years, but I’ve only ever included each song once. Priority is always given to an official album release. With demos, the version from the latest “era” is used – if there are multiple recordings in an era, I’ve just gone with the version I like best. This explains why, for example, the only songs listed under SS2K are the ones that weren’t carried over to later sessions.
• Some demo compilations have specifically been put together in “album”-style tracklisting by me. Again, we’ll discuss those when we get to them.

See you later this month for part one!