Music / Weezer

The current lineup.
From L-R, Scott Shriner, Brian Bell, Rivers Cuomo & Patrick Wilson.

"When I look in the mirror
I can't believe what I see
Tell me, who's that funky dude
Staring back at me?"

— "The Good Life"

Influences:

• Nirvana, The Pixies, Scorpions, The Cars, Sebadoh, Sonic Youth, Green Day, Oasis, The Beach Boys, KISS, The Beatles, Devo, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Flaming Lips, Pavement, They Might Be Giants, Radiohead

Weezer is a Los Angeles-based Alternative Rock/Power Pop/Emo band led by singer/guitarist/songwriter Rivers Cuomo.

After officially forming on Valentine's Day 1992, they played dozens of club dates and made several demo tapes before securing a record deal. They became a household name with the release of their self-titled debut album (known to many fans as The Blue Album) in 1994, with its singles "Buddy Holly", "Undone - The Sweater Song", and "Say It Ain't So" becoming staples on MTV. Since their breakthrough, they've released 15 albums, with their most recent record being Van Weezer in 2021.

Interestingly, although songs like "Buddy Holly" and "Island in the Sun" are well-known, their only Top 40 Billboard hit has been "Beverly Hills", which peaked at no. 10 (they've done much, much better on the radio airplay charts like Alternative Rock and Mainstream Rock).

Discography:

• Weezer (The Blue Album) (1994)
• Pinkerton (1996)
• Weezer (The Green Album) (2001)
• Maladroit (2002)
• Make Believe (2005)
• Weezer (The Red Album) (2008)
• Raditude (2009)
• Hurley (2010)
• Everything Will be Alright in the End (2014)
• Weezer (The White Album) (2016)
• Pacific Daydream (2017)
• Weezer (The Teal Album) (January 2019)
• Weezer (The Black Album) (March 2019)
• OK Human (January 2021)
• Van Weezer (May 2021)
• SZNZ: Spring (EP, March 2022)
• SZNZ: Summer (EP, June 2022)
• SZNZ: Autumn (EP, September 2022)
• SZNZ: Winter (EP, December 2022)

Principal Members (Founding members in bold, current members in italic):

• Brian Bell — Rhythm guitar, keyboards, backing vocals (1993-present)
• Jason Cropper — Rhythm guitar, acoustic guitar, backing vocals (1992-1993)
• Rivers Cuomo — Lead vocals, lead guitar (1992-present)
• Matt Sharp — Bass guitar, backing vocals (1992-1998)
• Scott Shriner — Bass guitar, backing vocals (2001-present)
• Mikey Welsh — Bass guitar, backing vocals (1998-2001, died 2011)
• Patrick Wilson — Drums, backing vocals, occasional guitar (1992-present)

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"Your trope is a heart breaker..."

• Accent Upon The Wrong Syllable: "Hash Pipe"
  Down ON SAN-TA MON-I-CA where TRICKS are for kids
• Album Title Drop: Everything Will be Alright in the End was their first album to have one, and it actually happens twice: Once it's part of a Spoken Word in Music intro to "Ain't Got Nobody", the second time it's actually sung in "Foolish Father".
• Alcoholic Parent: "Say It Ain't So."
• Alternate Music Video: The video for "Island In The Sun" features two music videos. The first version was directed by Marcos Siega, where the band is shown performing the song at a Mexican couple's wedding reception. The executives at MTV disliked Siega's video, so the band commissioned director Spike Jonze (who had previously directed the videos for "Undone" and Buddy Holly") to film a second version. The second version features the band on a hilltop, playing with various wild animals (such as lions and monkeys). This version of the video was accepted by MTV and became the more popular/recognizable version.
• Audience Participation Song: "El Scorcho" ("why you wanna go and do me like that/come down to the street and DANCE with me!") "The Greatest Man that Ever Lived" (during the sections directly after each tempo change).
  • The 'hip hip' part of "Island in the Sun."
  • "I've HAD it!" from "The Good Life."
  • The "oh OH!" chorus of "Perfect Situation."
• Badass Boast: "The Greatest Man That Ever Lived"
  • A lot of The Red Album can be described this way. See "Troublemaker," "Everybody Get Dangerous," and "Cold Dark World", although "Troublemaker" is also comic (and so, arguably, is "The Greatest Man Who Ever Lived".) Bonus track "King" is full of them but the tone of the song has them intentionally come off as more pathetic and desperate than convincing.
• Break Up Song: "Go Away" featuring Bethany Cosentino goes back and forth between I want you back and don't want you back between Cuomo and Cosentino, respectively.
• Buffy Speak: One of Rivers' trademarks is occasionally breaking into this during his lyrics. It's especially evident on their first two albums - the later ones somewhat hid that aspect beneath Word Salad Lyrics.
• Call-Back: In "The End of the Game," the singer laments how the loss of his friend makes him feel like he's "on an island with no sun," referencing the popular Green Album song "Island In the Sun."
• Changing Chorus: The chorus to "Tired Of Sex" changes with each repetition, with only the final line staying consistent:
  First chorus:
  Monday night, I'm makin' Jen
  Tuesday night, I'm makin' Lyn
  Wednesday night, I'm makin' Catherine
  Oh, why can't I be makin' love come true?
  Second chorus:
  Thursday night, I'm makin' Denise
  Friday night, I'm makin' Sharise
  Saturday night, I'm makin' Louise
  Oh, why can't I be makin' love come true?
  Third chorus:
  Tonight, I'm down on my knees
  Tonight, I'm begging you please
  Tonight, tonight, please
  Oh, why can't I be makin' love come true?
• Cloudcuckoolander: Rivers comes across as one in his online series Let's Write a Sawng and in his Twitter feed (even by Twitter standards). Though there's a Trolling Creator feeling to it as well. Justified in the case of his Twitter account, as all of the tweets are just out-of-context captions from fan-submitted Snapchat messages, but most people following him don't know that.
  Rivers Cuomo on Twitter: Wow the fact that the blue album is the same age as me is wild.
• Clothing Damage: "If you want to destroy my sweater... (whoa whoa whoa!)"
• Concept Album: Pinkerton drew much of its influence from Puccini's opera, Madame Butterfly; and of course, there's the scrapped Songs From the Black Hole.
  • Everything Will Be Alright in the End is at least a loose one: Rivers Cuomo has stated in an interview that all of the songs on the album are parts of three song cycles with common lyrical themes: Belladonna (songs about girls), The Panopticon Artist (songs about the band's relationship with fans and the music industry), and Patriarchia (songs about fatherhood, heavily informed by his reconnection with his own father).
• Cover Album: The Teal Album covers the likes of Toto, Eurythmics, Michael Jackson, and even Black Sabbath.
• Credits Gag: Pinkerton includes the credit "Karl Koch - Karl Koch" (a long-time friend of the band who runs their website, among other things). The EPs The Lion and the Witch and Winter Weezerland both credit Rupert Peasley as a producer: "Rupert Peasley" was the invokedFan Nickname for the man depicted on the cover of Maladroit.
• A Day in the Limelight: The Red Album lets Brian, Scott, and Pat shine.
  • Brian sings "Thought I Knew", the bonus track "It's Easy", and shares lead vocals on "Dreamin'" and "Everybody Get Dangerous".
  • Scott sings "Cold Dark World", the bonus track "King" and shares lead on their cover of The Band's "The Weight".
  • Pat sings "Automatic" and the cover of Talk Talk's "Life's What You Make It".
  • Though, Pat did co-write a couple of Blue Album songs, namely "My Name Is Jonas" (co-written with Jason Cropper, too) "The World Has Turned and Left Me Here" and "Surf Wax America". He also co-wrote Blue outtake "Lullabye for Wayne".
  • Pat also wrote the Raditude track "In the Mall," though Rivers sings it.
  • "Yellow Camaro" was written and sung by Brian Bell and attempted a few times as a Weezer demo, but ultimately became a song for Brian's side project Space Twins... Only for a Weezer version to finally become a Japan-only bonus track of Death to False Metal 7 years later - though Brian himself apparently didn't know it was ever officially released by Weezer until a fan brought it up at a Q & A session.
• Darker and Edgier: Pinkerton was much darker thematically and rougher musically than its predecessor: the self-titled debut. The initial backlash was so great that the following Green Album marked a decided turn towards Lighter and Softer the band hasn't really returned from.
• Distracted by the Sexy: The video for "If You're Wondering If I Want You To" has this happen to two people: one standing in the street watching said girl, and the other driving a pickup truck, which hits the one standing in the street.
• Dork in a Sweater: "Come Undone" aka "The Sweater Song".
• Downer Ending: The already dark Pinkerton ends on "Butterfly", in which the protagonist ruins the relationship he so desperately sought out and gained in the previous track, hurting his lover in the process, and can only apologize for his own selfish behavior.
  • In one draft of the unfinished Songs from the Black Hole and many fan reconstructions, the narrative ends on "Longtime Sunshine", where the planet the cast was headed for turns out to be a barren wasteland. With one escape pod short of saving the entire crew, a suicidal and guilt-stricken Jonas chooses to stay behind and allow himself to be killed by the sun going supernova.
  • The otherwise upbeat and optimistic Weezer (The Green Album) ends with the Break Up Song "O Girlfriend".
• Drugs Are Bad:
  • "We Are All on Drugs":
    And the best of your days
    Will all vanish into haze when you're on drugs
    And you wish you could quit
    'Cause you're really sick of it but you're on drugs
  • "Do You Wanna Get High?" also seems to imply this.
  • The narrator of "Hash Pipe" is a seedy Crossdressing Streetwalker, and the song evokes Hookers and Blow in a decidedly unglamorous way.
• Easter Egg: The Green Album booklet folds out to a poster of the band onstage - hidden among the crowd are the silhouettes of Mike Nelson, Tom Servo, and Crow T. Robot. The same album also has the word "No" hidden under the tray, which has caused speculation among fans about what it's supposed to mean - theories range from a reply to the text hidden under OK Computer's tray (which ends with the question "would you like to come home with me") to a message to fans that the album would not be another Pinkerton. The band have not confirmed any of these theories, and the only comment came from webmaster Karl Koch, who simply said: "No means no".
  • Similar to the "No" example, but more ambitious, Pinkerton has a map under its CD tray with "Isol Della Farfalla e Penisola Di Cane." which is Italian for: "Island of the Butterfly and Peninsula of Dog.", a ship named the U.S.S. Pinkerton, Mykel and Carli Island, a reference to the founders of Weezer's fan club, more Shout Outs to Madame Butterfly and the names of musicians who influenced the band during recording. (Brian Wilson, Yngwie Malmsteen, etc.)
  • The inside of Maladroit includes a fold-out photo of the band where, if you examine it closely, Patrick Wilson appears semi-transparent, with some of the background showing through him - Patrick couldn't make the photoshoot, so they photoshopped him in, and made him semi-transparent as a nod to the fact that he wasn't actually present.
  • On the DVD Video Capture Device in the Scene Select menu, pressing right on the Maladroit TV Spot option activates a hidden scene of the band with Rivers wearing a long blond wig performing Keep Fishing for a British TV show.
• Endearingly Dorky: Pinkerton deconstructs this trope, where the protagonists of the songs go past adorable and right into creepy.
• Epic Rocking: "Only in Dreams" clocks in at 8:03.
• Flanderization: The chief criticism directed at Weezer's albums after Pinkerton (especially Green, Maladroit and Make Believe) is that Rivers Cuomo "dumbed down" his songwriting to a Strictly Formula process after the more ambitious Pinkerton completely tanked. This three-part essay elaborates on that theory.
• Friendly Rivalry: With Green Day, dating all the way back to when both bands were being courted by major labels and label reps would rave about one band to the other. Their respective breakthrough albums (Dookie and the Blue Album) were released three months apart in 1994. They work well as Red Oni, Blue Oni counterparts (Green Day as the boisterous Red, Weezer as the more reserved Blue), and as SoCal (Weezer) versus NorCal (Green Day). Green Day gets a Shout-Out in "El Scorcho", Weezer has done a couple of acoustic Green Day covers, and both bands joined forces for a stadium tour with Fall Out Boy in 2021.
• Greatest Hits Album: Surprisingly, in a recording career spanning a quarter-century, they've never released a formal one. The closest they've come is Six Hits, an EP released exclusively to Best Buy stores in 2008, and an iTunes Originals collection mixing songs and interviews in 2010.
• Guest-Star Party Member: The band's archivist Karl Koch has several appearances on albums, such as being responsible for the piano destruction at the end of "Undone - The Sweater Song" and playing percussion on "Butterfly". According to Koch, the latter's because "Butterfly" was the last song recorded in a crunch at around 3 AM, when the only people left in the studio were Rivers, him, and engineer Dave Fridmann.
• Hymn to Music: "Heart Songs" is an ode to the bands and songs that Rivers Cuomo listened to growing up and that influenced his musical style. He mentions a diverse group of artists including Gordon Lightfoot, John Lennon, Bruce Springsteen, ABBA, Michael Jackson, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, and Slayer.
  These are my heart songs
  They never feel wrong
  And when I wake, for goodness sake
  These are the songs I keep singing
• I Am the Band: Since the band is actually named after him ("Weezer" being his childhood nickname), from the start it's always been apparent that Rivers is in charge, and this has sometimes led to a dictatorial streak in his frontman role (Matt Sharp left the band due to this). It reached an apex around 2001-2002 when he fired their longtime manager and took complete control of the band. Rivers himself admitted he turned into a Small Name, Big Ego around this point thanks to his obsession with "conquering the world" with his music. It seems he's let up a bit lately, considering the other members' contributions to The Red Album and the co-writers on Raditude and Hurley.
• Lead Singer Plays Lead Guitar: Lead singer Rivers Cuomo plays the guitar solos, as well as the more melodic guitar parts during verses/choruses. This is in stark contrast to rhythm guitarist Brian Bell's more chordal contributions.
• Lighter and Softer: The band’s entire discography post-Pinkerton counts, to varying degrees.
  • While not without somber moments, The White Album is more upbeat and happy than the often melancholy and self-reflective lyrics of Everything Will Be Alright in the End.
  • Raditude and Pacific Daydream are their lightest albums to date, with an increased pop-rock influence in both. "I'm Your Daddy", "Mexican Fender" and "Weekend Woman" are the closest you'll get to "classic Weezer" on those releases. The Black Album more or less is an expansion of the sound.
• Longest Song Goes Last: The Blue Album closes with the 8-minute epic "Only In Dreams", while the Green Album closes with "O Girlfriend", though no song on Green exceeds 4 minutes.
• Long Runner: Formed in 1992, their continued output and touring to this day seem to suggest no signs of slowing down anytime soon.
• Long-Runner Line-up: The current line-up has been in place since 2001, thus making them a Type 2. Rivers Cuomo, Patrick Wilson, and Brian Bell, however, have been together since 1993 (though Rivers and Patrick are the only founding members still there).
• Lyrical Cold Open: Done notably on "Buddy Holly", with the opening line "What's with these homies dissin' my girl?".
  • Other examples from their studio albums include "Run Away", "Lonely Girl", and "Playing My Piano".
• Lyrical Dissonance:
  • "Surf Wax America" is an upbeat, high tempo song about a guy who avoids obligations so that he can surf all day... only to be pulled in by undertow and killed.
  • "Cold Dark World" has lyrics promising to be there for a love interest no matter what, set to slow, ominous minor key music - even though there's no signs of malice in the lyrics, it ends up sounding like it's about a Stalker with a Crush. The music and lyrics were written separately by different members of the band, and they just found the juxtaposition interesting.
  • "I'm a Robot" is pretty happy-sounding for being about a jaded office worker whose only release is alcohol.
• Mid-Vid Skit: The famous Concept Video for "Buddy Holly" presents the band as playing a gig in Arnold's from Happy Days, opening with Talky Bookends from the show. At the end of the second chorus, the music stops and cuts to the show's "Stay tuned for more Happy Days" bumper, then almost immediately the music starts again. Fortunately, it's just long enough to make the viewer wonder if the video's over.
• Miniscule Rocking: "My Evaline", a 44 second barbershop cover released as a B-Side.
  • The Green Album as a whole is this, with the entire album not exceeding half an hour and no song exceeding four minutes.
  • On the same note, Raditude is this as a whole, given it's only 35 minutes and "Can't Stop Partying" is the only song to hit the 4-minute mark.
  • OK Human has the 24 second instrumental "Everything Happens for a Reason", the shortest song to appear on a proper Weezer album... Though it can be considered a separately tracked intro to the following track, "Here Comes The Rain".
• Mondegreen Gag: Scott Shriner apparently had a mondegreen for "Holiday" when he was still a new addition to the band: The version from the live EP The Lion And The Witch has him singing the bridge backing vocals as "We will write a postcard to our friends and family and freebase" (instead of "...in free verse"), and ends with Rivers correcting him.
• Nerd Hoard: "In the Garage" describes the large collection of nerdy items in the protagonist's garage, including items from Dungeons & Dragons, X-Men, and poster-covered walls with his favorite bands, including KISS.
• New Sound Album: Most Weezer albums have a distinct sound from one and other. Examples include:
  • Pinkerton is noticeably Darker and Edgier than the Blue Album, and amps up on the emo sound, while downplaying the power pop of that album.
  • Due to the initial panning of Pinkerton, the Green Album has a sound closer to that of the Blue Album, but is more pop punk-oriented.
  • Maladroit, like Pinkerton before it, is noticeably Darker and Edgier than its predecessor, adding Hard Rock and Heavy Metal elements to the mix.
  • The Red Album is perhaps their most eclectic album to date, and has other members of the band singing some of the songs.
  • Hurley adds synths to the mix, and is influenced by the 2000's post-punk revival scene.
  • Pacific Daydream adds elements of electropop and indie pop.
  • OK Human is their biggest departure to date, having a very orchestral sound.
  • Van Weezer, as the title suggests, is an homage Van Halen's music, as well as other popular hard rock and heavy metal acts.
• One-Man Song: Buddy Holly.
• Parental Abandonment: "Say It Ain't So" is about this.
• Preacher's Kid: The unreleased "Preacher's Son"
• Precision F-Strike: "Can't Stop Partying", said by Lil Wayne. Rivers himself uses "goddamn" in "Undone - The Sweater Song" (Goddamn/I am), "Across the Sea" (Goddamn, this business is really lame), "El Scorcho" (Goddamn you half-Japanese girls/Do it to me every time) and "Falling for You" (Holy sweet goddamn, you left your cello in the basement), the latter also including "hell". The effect is similar since Rivers himself pointed out that he usually avoids swearing:
  Weezer came up at a time when Jane's Addiction released Nothing's Shocking — everyone was trying to be controversial. We looked back to rock & roll's pre-drug days — to the clean images of the The Beach Boys — that felt, ironically, rebellious.
  • "My Brain Is Working Overtime", which was only performed live during one tour, included the lyric "tell the world to fuck itself" - its only commercial release was a Rivers Cuomo solo demo that omitted the verse with that lyric entirely. In 2016, the non-album single "I Love The USA" became the first officially released Weezer song where Rivers himself delivered an f-bomb: "I love the USA/ Fuck yeah, this place is great". Even then, they also released a censored version replacing "fuck yeah" with "eff yeah".
  • Prior to "I Love the USA" Rivers did say "fag" in the song "Dope Nose" (Fag of the year/Who could beat up your man).
  • At a recent concert, Rivers delivers the final repetition of "Pork and Beans" as "One look in the mirror and I'm tickled pink/I don't give a FUCK about what you think!" Replacing the normal "Hoot" and delivering two middle fingers to the world at large.
  • Weezer's reputation for not swearing went to hell with the Black Album, with three songs featuring use of the F-word and various other swearing scattered throughout.
  • Rivers drops the F-bomb in the post-chorus for "Records" as well.
• Pretty Fly for a White Guy: Rivers Cuomo, at least occasionally. Weirdly, he seems to have been incredibly conscious of this trope and refused to make any of Weezer's songs 'funky' because he thought he'd be accused of it, white people attempting to be "funky" with bad results being a Running Gag between him and Matt Sharp. He apparently didn't realize that his lyrics sometimes went into this territory, but he did relent on three occasions: for the song "Hot Tub", the Reggae riff that underpins the verses of "Say It Ain't So", and covering Ice Cube's "The Bomb" (a home demo that was released on the first Alone compilation).
• Race Fetish: Part of Pinkerton's famously uncomfortable honesty includes Cuomo admitting to having one of these for Asian women. He would later marry a woman of Japanese ethnicity.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: 'Back to the Shack' directly addresses the criticisms lobbed at the last several albums before it and assures the listeners who hate those albums to any extent that it's going to get better with their writing and production. It did.
  • The same song also addressed fan criticism of then-recent concerts: From 2009-2012 they started bringing a second drummer, Josh Freese, on tour so the band could switch instruments for certain songs, with drummer Patrick Wilson notably playing guitar and/or singing at times. Fans seemed to prefer seeing the members stick to their usual roles, hence the lyric "Maybe I should play lead guitar and Pat should play the drums".
• Rearrange the Song: "Weekend Woman" from Pacific Daydream is a drastically reworked version of "Burning Sun", a Green Album outtake that leaked long beforehand. Basically the verse melody and a few Recycled Lyrics were used as a jumping off point for a new song.
  • "Thought I Knew", Brian Bell's Step Up to the Microphone song on The Red Album, was originally a song by his side project The Relationship. The Weezer version changed it from a minor key to a major one because the band felt it fit the feel of the album better that way.
  • The Rentals' "Please Let That Be You" has origins in a Weezer outtake called "Mrs. Young", which was written and sung by Matt Sharp - most of the lyrics were changed, and it also went from being an acoustic song to heavily keyboard-based New Wave Music (so to better fit in with the rest of the album Return of the Rentals)
• Rockers Smash Guitars: The inner booklet of The Blue Album shows a photo of the band's garage, and the headstock of a guitar Rivers had previously smashed to pieces.
• Scatting: The earliest demo of "Burndt Jamb", where the vocals consisted entirely of combinations of "do" and "ah". The Maladroit version added proper lyrics, but there was still some scatting in the backing vocals ("doot do do do")
• Self-Backing Vocalist: Rivers did this on Green, in contrast to the Vocal Tag Team method the band used in The '90s.
• Self-Deprecation: "Back to the Shack" from Everything Will Be Alright in The End is basically Rivers calling himself a Sell-Out.

Sorry guys, I didn't realize that I needed you so much
I thought I'd get a new audience, I forgot that disco sucks
I ended up with nobody and I started feelin' dumb
Maybe I should play the lead guitar and Pat should play the drums

• Self-Titled Album: Six of them! They are usually told apart by the main color of their covers (1994: "Blue Album", 2001: "Green Album", 2008: "Red Album", 2016: "White Album", and with 2019, we got two self titled albums: "Teal Album" and "Black Album" ).
• Shout-Out:
  • "In the Garage" is basically an extended, geeky shout-out to all the things Rivers loves (KISS, Dungeons & Dragons, X-Men...).
  • And of course Hurley for Lost, the cover of the album being a picture of actor Jorge Garcia.
  • "Devotion" has the line "I'm no six foot hot look all American man", a shout out to the somewhat obscure KISS song "All American Man" (in which Paul Stanley says he is "a six foot hot look all American man").
  • "El Scorcho" is named after Del Taco's "Del Scorcho" brand of hot sauce, quotes a line from "Don't Believe the Hype" ("I'm the epitome, a public enemy"), name-drops professional wrestlers Johnny Grunge and New Jack and references Cio-Cio San, the protagonist of Madame Butterfly from whence the album Pinkerton derives its concept. There is also a line referencing Green Day. Apparently the girl that this song was written about had never heard of them. How cool is that?
  • Every YouTube video ever (of the late 2000's) in the "Pork and Beans" video. The song itself notes that "Timbaland knows the way to reach the top of the charts."
  • And "Heart Songs" is a long shout out to Rivers' musical influences, to the point where a single line will most likely namecheck at least 2 songs or musicians. For instance:
  Quiet Riot got me started with the banging of my head
  Iron Maiden, Judas Priest and Slayer taught me how to shred

  ...and...
  Eddie Rabbitt sang about how much he loved a rainy night
  ABBA, Devo and Benatar were there the day John Lennon died
  • Slayer is also mentioned at the beginning of "(If You're Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To", albeit just as a shirt logo. The same song has Rivers talking about taking the girl he loves to Best Buy, and the two of them watching Titanic (1997) and it not making them sad.
  • The Blue Album B-side "Susanne" originally included a shout-out to Nirvana's Kurt Cobain^note Rivers is a big Nirvana fan, to the point that during Weezer's hiatus, the band played a secret show of Nirvana covers in 1998 under the name "Goat Punishment"; Nevermind also gets referenced in "Heart Songs", and the band would open the encore of the Troublemaker tour by playing a cover of "Sliver" as a trio, and his rival Axl Rose. The lyrics were revised after his suicide to replace Cobain's name with Rose's bandmates Izzy and Slash, but whenever the band plays "Susanne" live they use the original lyric instead.
  • The photo of the band's garage in the booklet of The Blue Album shows a poster of Judas Priest's British Steel on the wall. Later an official Weezer t-shirt would parody the British Steel cover, using the slogan "American Rock" and depicting a hand holding up a stone with the band name on it (instead of a hand holding up a giant razor blade reading "Judas Priest", as in the British Steel artwork).
  • A line from "Summer Elaine and Drunk Dori" ("She touched my ankle, Paranoid Android!") references Radiohead.
  • Blackpink is mentioned in their song "Screens".
  • Aerosmith gets mentioned in "I Need Some of That".
  • Rihanna, Lana Del Rey and Nirvana are namedropped in "Records".
• Singer Namedrop: They've done live versions of "El Scorcho" where they changed the Green Day Shout-Out to "I asked you to go to the Weezer concert."
• Step Up to the Microphone: Every member gets a shot at singing lead on The Red Album.
  • The Teal Album has Brian Bell singing lead on "Paranoid".
• Soda-Candy 'Splosion: The music video for "Pork and Beans" features a variety of then-popular viral videos, including Eepybird's "Extreme Mentos & Diet Coke". Rivers first sprays himself in the face with a single bottle, before Voltz and Grobe of Eepybird help enact a large-scale display of Diet Coke and Mentos eruptions behind the band.
• Soft Reboot: The Green Album was a deliberate example due to the (at-the-time) negative reception of Pinkerton, returning the band to a simpler sound akin to The Blue Album.
• Solo Side Project: During their post-Pinkerton hiatus, Rivers had two different side bands called the Rivers Cuomo Band and Homie. Matt Sharp's side band The Rentals (with Patrick Wilson temporarily filling in on drums) signed with Madonna's Maverick Records and scored a Top 10 hit on the Billboard Alternative chart with "Friends of P." in 1995, and Sharp ultimately left Weezer to focus on it. Brian Bell (Space Twins) and Patrick Wilson (The Special Goodness, which Scott Shriner has also helped out with) also have side bands that they've recorded and released material with over the years.
• Studio Chatter: If you listen to the multitracks for "El Scorcho," you can hear the rest of the band cracking up in the background. Also, the famous "el scorcho... rrrrocknroll!" at the beginning of the song seems to have been part of a conversation the band was having about Taco Bell sauce that just got left in the mix.
  • There is also the dialogue in-between verses of "Undone (The Sweater Song)".
  • This was intentionally utilized on The White Album. As Rivers explained on the Song Exploder podcast, producer Jake Sinclair would have the band gather around a microphone to improvise harmonies and banter. This is most noticeable in "Summer Elaine and Drunk Dori" (Specifically Brian saying "you witch!" and someone imitating a piano after the line "Sweet piano melodies play").
  • "I Need Some Of That" ends with a snippet of chat between the band and former producer Ric Ocasek. ^note this was chatter from an entirely different recording session, included as tribute - Ric had passed away before the album was completed, an earlier version of "I Need Some of That" was attempted with him as producer, and he apparently had been fond of the song
  • "Should She Say Or Should She Go?" starts with Rivers mentioning the Old Testament, followed by Brian jokingly confusing it with the early works of the thrash metal band.
• Surfer Dude: "Surf Wax America" is a sarcastic take on the subject.
• Take That!/Writer Revolt: "Pork and Beans" is one against record executives.
  • As is "The British Are Coming".
  • "Tell Me What You Want", which even calls out a specific publication that's given the band mixed reviews:
    This is a message that my manager wouldn't approve
    After this song, I'll have a lot of cleaning up to do
    Don't be influenced by an office full of dorks
    I won't mention any names, (cough, cough) Pitchfork
• Take That, Audience!: "Space Rock" stemmed from some of the frustration Rivers Cuomo had while interacting with fans on message boards - Hence "You wanna cry when you're dealing with the kids / they know it all, and they're pinning you to the boards".
  • "I've Had It Up to Here" could also be seen as this. "I tried to give my best to you, but you put up your ears. Now I just can't take no more, I've had it up to here." And, later. "If you think I need approval from a baseless drum, that's where you're wrong."
• Three Chords and the Truth: Especially in The Green Album and Maladroit, which clock at less than 30 minutes.
• Tyop on the Cover: The liner notes of The Black Album list all of the members of the band individually, including "Rivers Como". His name is then spelled correctly several times on the same page - the misprint is much more noticeable because that section is in all caps and white-on-black text (whereas the rest of the credits are black on black).
• Visual Title Drop: The front cover of Hurley features only a picture of the actor who played Hurley on Lost.
• Vocal Tag Team: During the Blue and Pinkerton era, it was Rivers on lead and Brian and Matt doing backing vocals (Matt's were usually falsetto), and some song parts spotlight them more than Rivers (the breakdowns of "Surf Wax America" and "Holiday").
  • While occasionally utilized after Pinkerton, as of The White Album, it seems they've fully gone back to this approach (albeit with Scott on falsetto instead of Matt).
• We Used to Be Friends:
  • There have been differing accounts and much left unspoken about the whole situation, but it's clear that personal acrimony between Rivers Cuomo and Matt Sharp played a role in Sharp leaving the band. Rivers and Matt had been very close in the band's formative years, with Matt essentially acting as the Team Dad, handling management duties and helping Rivers articulate his vision of the band. With the success of The Rentals and Rivers settling into more of an I Am the Band attitude, Sharp decided to leave. Relations soured to the point that Sharp sued his ex-bandmates. The lawsuit was settled and Rivers and Matt reconciled shortly thereafter, but it's still a subject that the various parties don't seem comfortable talking about.
  • Jason Cropper was let go in the final days of the Blue Album sessions (Rivers re-recorded his guitar parts), and even signed a confidentiality agreement about the matter, leading to much speculation and gossip about the incident. But his case is largely an aversion since he remained on good terms with the others. When Rivers did a handful of solo acoustic performances in 2018, Jason was brought onstage to join in on a few Blue Album era songs per set.
• Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: Since they had Hippie Parents, Rivers and his brother Leaves count. Rivers was almost named Apple. When they hit their teens, their mother had them pick more normal names to fit in better at school. Rivers chose Peter (in honor of Peter Criss) and Leaves chose James (The "wrestle with Jimmy" line in "Say it Ain't So" is about him), but they reverted back to the originals after a while.
• A Wild Rapper Appears!:
  • Lil Wayne's verse on "Can't Stop Partying" (and Chamillionaire's verse in the alternate version), Omitted in the Acoustic Version.
  • Rivers himself does this at the start of "The Greatest Man That Ever Lived".
• Word Salad Lyrics: Weezer lyrics are generally pretty straightforward, but then there's "Dope Nose", which Rivers Cuomo has called "just a bunch of garbage lyrics" with "no meaning whatsoever," which, with lines like "Cheese smells so good on a burnt piece of lamb", is hard to argue with.
  • Most of The Green Album and Maladroit qualify as this - they're occasionally criticized for stubbornly refusing to make any sense.
  • Some of Maladroit's outtakes, which the band posted on their official site while still working on the album, got particularly strange lyrically - For instance, from "Big Chip" (also known as "Don't Pick On Me"): "'cause I don't believe in a burn like that \ I pick up my donuts for free".

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