Weezer is the third album by the American alternative rock band Weezer. Commonly referred to as The Green Album to differentiate it from the band's other two self-titled albums, released in 1994 ("Blue") and 2008 ("Red") respectively. The album was the band's second album to be produced by Ric Ocasek. Released on May 15, 2001 through Geffen Records, The Green Album became a worldwide commercial success, reaching #4 on the U.S. Billboard 200 and charting in numerous countries. The album featured the hit singles: "Hash Pipe," "Island in the Sun," and "Photograph." The album was seen as a rebirth for Weezer, following a hiatus since their 1996 album, Pinkerton, which was initially a commercial and critical failure.

Weezer was the band's first release without longtime bassist Matt Sharp, as he was busy with his own band, The Rentals, at the time. This album featured Mikey Welsh on bass, although he was replaced by their next album.

Background

Following the commercial and critical failure of Pinkerton, frontman Rivers Cuomo placed the band on hiatus. He retreated to Harvard, but eventually dropped out to focus on songwriting. During this time, he played with a different rotation of musicians in Boston called Homie. One of the members of Homie was Mikey Welsh, who would eventually be asked to replace Matt Sharp in Weezer. In the Winter of 1997-1998, Homie recorded what has been reported to be an album's worth of material at Fort Apache Studios and some at Cuomo's house in Cambridge. This album, however, remains only in the form of master tapes and is largely unfinished, having only drum tracks finished. Homie's only official release was a track for the Meet the Deedles soundtrack entitled "American Girls."

By February 1998, Cuomo abandoned the Homie band without much notice and headed to Los Angeles to begin work on Weezer demos with Brian Bell and Patrick Wilson. At this point, bassist Matt Sharp was absent from numerous Weezer rehearsals and becoming very estranged from the band. On April 8, 1998, Matt Sharp announced his official exit from Weezer to devote all his energies to his band, The Rentals. By the Spring of 1998, it would be revealed that former Homie member Mikey Welsh would take over on bass for Weezer. Weezer continued rehearsal and cut demos until the fall of 1998. Frustration and creative disagreements led to a decline in rehearsals, and in late fall of 1998, drummer Patrick Wilson left for his home in Portland pending renewed productivity from Cuomo. Rivers Cuomo went into a period of admitted depression, painting the walls of his home black and putting "fiberglass insulation all over the windows and then black sheets of fiberglass so that no light could get through."

By the beginning of 1999, Weezer had gone their separate ways. Drummer Patrick Wilson resumed his efforts with his side-band The Special Goodness and guitarist Brian Bell worked on his band The Space Twins. Meanwhile Mikey Welsh toured with Juliana Hatfield. Meanwhile Cuomo focused deeply on songwriting, crafting 121 songs, of which close to half would become demos. During this time, he had isolated himself, having very little contact with the outside world. He received braces on his teeth, further damaging his self-esteem. Brian Bell would occasionally visit Cuomo and play some songs with him. Cuomo would eventually reveal songs he was working on to Bell.

Meanwhile, unbeknowest to the band, their fanbase was ballooning due to the expansion of the internet. The reputation of Pinkerton was greatly improving due to word-of-mouth over the internet, quietly shifting thousands of units each week. This expanding internet activity would later set the stage for the band's 2001 comeback.

Renewed interaction between band members took place when Weezer was offered an extremely lucrative offer to perform in Japan in August 2000 for the Summer Sonic Festival. The festival served as a catalyst for Weezer's productivity, and from April to May 2000, the band rehearsed and demoed new songs in Los Angeles. Rehearsals for the show, reinvigorated the band into talking about making a new album. The band returned to performing in June 2000, playing low-key shows around Los Angeles, but without the Weezer name. Instead, the shows featured the group's first use of the pseudonym, Goat Punishment, so they could play to only longtime fans who would recognize the name.

Eventually the band started performing more high profile gigs such as the Warped Tour. Cuomo later remarked, "We went in there fully expecting to be booed and to have things thrown at us. But it was exactly the opposite, people were singing along to all the songs and just going crazy, giving us the best support. And I think that gave us the confidence we needed." The positive response to the Warp Tour performances lend to further shows being scheduled.

When touring began to wind down, MP3 demos captured live on the band's mobile unit and sound checks began to surface on file-sharing services and eventually on the band's official website for download. These songs were often referred to as Summer Songs of 2000 (commonly abbreviated, SS2K).

Recording process

On October 23rd, Cuomo announced that the band would start recording material "with or without" a producer. However, the band's record label opted to have the band have a record producer due to the commercial failure of their self-produced album Pinkerton. The band began rehearsing and arranging both the Summer Songs of 2000 and newer material Cuomo had written at Cuomo's home with engineer Chad Bamford. The band eventually decided on Ric Ocasek who produced their debut album. The band began sending demos to Ocasek during the Summer of 2000. There was much debate among the band whether or not to record in Los Angeles or Ocasek's New York home, eventually deciding to record in Los Angeles at Cello Studios. The band continued to demo new music daily, and started to weeding through more than seventy-five demos, eventually homing in on twenty-five pontential album tracks in anticipation of Ocasek's arrival. Ocasek would work with the band to trim the track listing down further to eighteen songs.

Recording sessions for the album began in early December, Ocasek would provide creative feedback to the band by telephone. While recording the album, the band performed gigs under their pseudonym Goat Punishment. On December 27th, the band would embark on what would be close to six weeks of studio work by playing songs repetitively in order to track the bass and drums parts. They also did "scratch takes" of the vocals and guitar, designed to get accurate rhythm tracks before being redone more efficiently later in the recording process.

During recording, one of the higher-up's at the band's label Geffen Records dropped by to check on the band's progress, announcing dissatisfaction with several tracks. Eventually forcing the band to discard a few of the album's possible song contenders. The band would then relocate to the smaller studio in another part of Cello Studios. Cuomo and Bell would work on guitar takes, while the entire band would put down vocal tracks. Ocasek remarked, "Rivers always does his guitar parts in one take." After three weeks into the recording sessions, the guitar work was completed.

Mixing for the album began on January 31st by Tom Lord-Alge at South Beach Studios. Drummer Patrick Wilson was absent from the mixing process because he had returned home to Portland to work on material for his band The Special Goodness. Brian Bell was also absent from the mixing process.

Artwork and liner notes

The art direction of the album was handled by Chris Bilheimer with photography from Marina Chavez and Karl Koch. The album cover was shot in between band practices. It featured Mikey Welsh, Rivers Cuomo, Brian Bell and Patrick Wilson standing left to right in front of a plain, lime-green backdrop in a manner similar to the band's debut album. It was done as a tribute to Ric Ocasek who had produced their first album. It was also to symbolize the band's back to basics approach they took while recording the album. This is evident by a quote in the linear notes of the album, "Torniamo all'antico e sarà un progresso." This is a quote from Italian opera composer Giuseppe Verdi that roughly translates in English to "Let us return to old times and that will be progress." Cuomo remarked on the artwork:

I set out to design the package exactly how I would want it, and it just turns out that it's very similar to the first album. I'm the same person as I was then, pretty much. I have the same taste so I don't see why it should be different.|cquote

The inside picture of the cd booklet is a photo of Weezer playing live features (in the lower right hand corner) the shadows of Mike Nelson, Tom Servo and Crow from the television show Mystery Science Theater 3000. Hence the citing in the liner notes that says "MST3k silhouette appears courtesy of Best Brains, Inc." Best Brains is the production company that produced MST3k.

Under the CD tray of the album on the white paper's edge, the word "No" can be found. Some fans speculate that this is a response to Radiohead's album OK Computer which has the text "I like you. I like you. You are a wonderful person. I'm full of enthusiasm. I'm going places. I'll be happy to help you. I am an important person, would you like to come home with me?", which is placed in a similar location as the "no." This has, however, not been confirmed. The band's official explanation was vague, simply stating, "No means no."

The album is dedicated "In loving memory of Mykel and Carli" for Mykel and Carli Allan, sisters devoted to developing fan clubs for up-and-coming bands. The two, who had been influential in starting Weezer's fan club, died in a car crash in 1997.

Release

The album was met with enthusiasm from the record label. "They had nothing but supportive and excited things to say about it," remarked Karl Koch. However, the album's original release date of April 17 was postponed due to executives not liking Cuomo's choice of the first single which was "Hash Pipe," citing the song's lurid content about a transvestite prostitute as inappropriate, they suggested that "Don't Let Go" instead. Yet, Cuomo continued to fight and eventually won out and "Hash Pipe" eventually became the album's first single. The label would once again try to postpone the release date further till June, however, once the band found out about this, they argued with the executives and the May 15th release date stuck.

The video for "Hash Pipe" was directed by Marcos Siega, the first of many Weezer videos that Siega would direct. In the video, Weezer is playing while a group of sumo wrestlers are standing in the background. The song would experience censorship often played as "H*** Pipe" (the title employed on the music video's title card) or "Half Pipe." The song would become a huge hit on the MTV show Total Request Live receiving heavy rotation. Also receiving much rotation on radio as well, eventually peaking at #2 on the US Modern Rock Charts. The song even landed the band a nomination for High Times magazine's "Pot Song of the Year."

On May 15, 2001, the album was released debuting at #4 on the Billboard charts, making it Weezer's first Top 10 album. It debuted overseas at #31 on the UK Top 40. In Canada, the album performed even better debuting at #2. In two weeks the album had sold 215,000 copies. It was certified platinum on September 13, 2001. As of December 2007, the album has sold 1,600,000 copies.

The next single "Island in the Sun" was a successful radio hit and perhaps the band's biggest hit overseas. It peaked at #11 on the US Modern Rock Charts and at #31 on the UK Top 40. Two music videos were created for the song. The first video which was directed by Marcos Siega shows Weezer playing the song at a Mexican couple's wedding reception and features all four band members. This version remains the more obscure of the two, receiving less airplay than the second. The executives at MTV disliked Siega's video, prompting the band to film a second video. The second video which was directed by Spike Jonze featured the band playing with various wild animals on a supposedly remote hill (though it was actually filmed a short distance outside of Los Angeles, which is thought to be in the hills near Simi Valley). Only Brian Bell, Rivers Cuomo, and Patrick Wilson appear in this video, as then bassist Mikey Welsh had been kicked out of or had left the band shortly before shooting. It is also rumored that original bassist Matt Sharp was approached to be in the video, though it is unclear if the offer was ever actually made. As a result, "Island in the Sun (Version Two)" had much wider play than the first version, and has become the standard video for the song.

The third and final single from the album was "Photograph," which was released to radio in early November. The single peaked at #17 on the US Modern Rock Charts. It was also released as the first single in Japan instead of "Hash Pipe." The band felt the song didn't have the staying power of the previous singles. So they decided to pass on a big-name director for the music video and had Karl Koch shoot and edit a video out of on-the-road footage.

Reception

The Green Album brought Weezer renewed critical success, earning a 73/100 on Metacritic. The album also appeared on over thirty critics' "Best of 2001" lists. Many critics saw the album as a return-to-form to the sound that was present on the band's debut album. Nude as the News' Jonathan Cohen praised the album saying, "It's full of timeless songs that don't need drum machines and bloated production tactics to stand out from the pack. It's a knee to the leather-panted groin of the odious 'alternative' rock acts jammed down our collective throats. These are all very good things, and The Green Album is an across-the-board triumph. Allmusic senior writer Stephen Thomas Erlewine who gave the album a near-perfect rating of four and a half stars, and cited that "this may seem like nothing special -- it's just punk-pop, delivered without much dynamic range but with a whole lot of hooks -- but nobody else does it this so well, no matter how many bands try. Popmatters' writer Jason Thompson also gave the album a positive review, praising the decision of the band to have Ric Ocasek producing them again, "The guitar solos ring out as joyful as the words. And even the songs' lengths are nice and compact. Weezer comes in, plays the song, and exits. No overkill makes for many moments where you want to hear these songs again and again. Perhaps having producer Ric Ocasek back on board was one of the best ideas the band had, as "The Green Album" is certainly water tight all around."

Track listing

All songs were written by Rivers Cuomo.

1. "Don't Let Go" – 2:59
2. "Photograph" – 2:19
3. "Hash Pipe" – 3:06
4. "Island in the Sun" – 3:20
5. "Crab" – 2:34
6. "Knock-down Drag-out" – 2:08
7. "Smile" – 2:38
8. "Simple Pages" – 2:56
9. "Glorious Day" – 2:40
10. "O Girlfriend"  – 3:49Bonus tracks

The UK and Japan versions of the album came with an additional bonus tracks, "I Do", which was previously a B-side that appeared on the "Hash Pipe" single. The Japanese version also featured "The Christmas Song", one of the two tracks that had appeared on the "Winter Weezerland" EP.

Chart positions

Album

Chart	Peak position
Billboard 200	4
UK Top 40	31
Sweden	8
Norway	7
Austria	15
New Zealand	25

Singles

Year	Song	Peak positions
		US Modern Rock	US Main- stream Rock	US Bill- board Hot 100	UK Top 40	Norway	Austria
2001	"Hash Pipe"	2	24	–	21	74	–
2001	"Island in the Sun"	11	–	–	31	–	–
2002	"Photograph"	17	–	–	–	–	–

Personnel

All information is taken from the CD.

• Rivers Cuomo – lead guitar, lead vocals
• Patrick Wilson – drums, percussion
• Atom Willard –"Drum God"/Drum Technician
• Brian Bell – rhythm guitar
• Mikey Welsh – bass guitar
• Ric Ocasek – producer
• Chris Bilheimer – art direction
• Femio Hernández – assistant engineer
• Alan Sanderson – assistant engineer
• Ken Allardyce – engineer
• Vladimir Meller – mastering
• Tom Lord-Alge – mixing

References

External links

• — United States
• — United Kingdom
• — Japan