Weezer - Weezer (Blue Album)

140-gram vinyl 2016 reissue

No. 299 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums list

Coming October 2016, Geffen/Universal Music Enterprises is reissuing Weezer’s first six albums on standard 140-gram vinyl. The SoCal quartet’s incredible run of Geffen Records releases – 1994’s Weezer (The Blue Album), 1996’s Pinkerton, 2001’s Weezer (The Green Album), 2002’s Maladroit, 2005’s Make Believe and 2008’s Weezer (The Red Album) – helped redefine the genre, mixing guitar hooks with a sense of geek-smart humor that radiated into the band’s popular live act and multitude of cutting-edge videos and visuals.

Few bands emerged as fully formed as Weezer, with its reimagined vision of rock ‘n' roll. With 17 million albums sold worldwide, and two LPs on Rolling Stone's list of most influential ever made, the L.A. quartet helmed by singer-guitarist Rivers Cuomo proved to be as popular as they are pioneering.

The triple platinum-selling Weezer (The Blue Album), was one of rock's most auspicious debuts. The album was not like anything most kids in 1994 had heard before, taking its nerdy cues from strange places the 1950s, comic books, Dungeons & Dragons, the Bible and producer Ric Ocasek, pop auteur of The Cars. Initially released without a single or much notice, the album's sales started slow but eventually reached triple platinum status, spending 78 weeks on the chart and peaking at No. 16 on the Billboard 200 albums chart. It has sold 3.7 million copies in the U.S alone. Local radio play for "Undone The Sweater Song" prompted an official release and video directed by then rising star Spike Jonze. The video featured the band performing on a soundstage, joined by a wandering pack of dogs. Their next Jonze-directed innovative video for "Buddy Holly" helped spike the band's popularity and won four MTV video awards. The song rose to No. 2 on Billboard's U.S. Modern Rock chart, one of three Top 10 hits for Weezer.

The album's esteem has only continued to rise in the decades since its release and its impact has been magnified. Rolling Stone placed the Blue Album in both its lists of Top 500 albums (No. 299) and Top 100 debut albums, where it was No. 35: 'When it came out, Weezer's debut was merely a cool, quirky power-pop album with a couple of hit singles: "Buddy Holly" and "Undone (The Sweater Song)." But Rivers Cuomo's band became a major influence to the young sad-sack punkers who today claim Weezer as one of emo's pioneers.

The songs on these vinyl reissues truly speak for themselves; chances are, you already know quite a lot of them, from Maladroit‘s "Keep Fishin'" (whose video epically featured the band in an episode of The Muppet Show) to Weezer (The Red Album)‘s "Pork and Beans" to Make Believe‘s Aughts-defining anthem "Beverly Hills," and more. These vinyl reissues serve as a brilliant refresher course for the story of band who are still making an indelible mark on music today.

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

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