It's cool to be a nerd for Weezer again

Weezer recently announced plans to do a possible tour featuring their first two studio albums played cover to cover.

It’s a rare move for any band to make these days, especially one that’s currently promoting its eighth upcoming studio album.

But given the history behind the band’s discography, a brief portion of which is as follows, it is well overdue.

In 1994, somewhere in between The Smashing Pumpkins’ “Siamese Dream” and Oasis’ “(What’s the Story) Morning Glory?,” alternative rock reached full swing.
It was an unlikely year for Harvard graduate Rivers Cuomo and his three tattoo-free bandmates to show the world the sounds of a great, no-nonsense guitar album.

But it was the year Weezer released their eponymous debut that single-handedly gave actual meaning to “nerd rock,” known popularly as “The Blue Album.”

Inside were 10 anthemic and power chord-laden tracks detailing various aspects of nerd life with lyrics so honest they induce occasional wincing. 

Case in point: the surfer wannabe’s anthem “Surf Wax America” (“I’m waxing down so that I’ll go real fast/I’m waxing down because it’s really a blast”) or the anti-socialite’s anthem “In the Garage” (“In the garage where I belong/no one hears me sing this song.”)

Not surprisingly, the album cover wasn’t quite as loud as that of Nirvana’s “Nevermind”; it features the band decked out in the Gap clearance rack standing expressionless in front of a solid blue backdrop.

But while the album felt modest and reserved on most levels, the guitar solos didn’t cower one bit.

Each one flourished high above the album’s infectious classic rock melodies and emphatically punctuated the relationship plights of Rivers Cuomo, hopeless romantic.
Against all odds, Weezer managed to produce a flair-free rock album still worth a close listen, and Cuomo laid to rest all notions that one must be from Seattle and have dabbled in heroin in order to wear his heart on his sleeve.

Beneath the unassuming front, it was a deceptively brave record and became one of the elite LPs of the 1990s.

Two years later they upped the ante with the harder, grittier, and profoundly emo “Pinkerton,” which took girl troubles to an unheard of new level.

Cuomo spared no intimate detail of his cursed love life from falling for a lesbian to falling for an enamored stranger who wrote him a letter from Japan.

The world found the vigorously self-deprecating album too off-putting to digest at first, and it was instantly shut down both critically and commercially, though it would earn its due appreciation by critics years later.

What happened to the band next is basically anyone’s guess.

Shortly after the “Pinkerton” release, Cuomo would dub himself “a complete fool” for creating a record so purgative, as he was hurt by its cold reception.

His recluse echoed his words — it was another five years before the band’s next release, 2001’s “The Green Album,” a bubblegum-coated, gutless and totally failed attempt at reincarnating the “Blue Album” sound. At 28 minutes and change, its greatest strength was ending so quickly.

Sadly, this was Weezer’s first step on the road to becoming rock and roll’s textbook sellout model.

By 2009, they had upgraded their department store wardrobe to matching metallic silver jumpsuits for an AOL Sessions performance featuring Chamillionaire and Kenny G. And they were all over the radio.

I don’t know why it took the band fourteen years to want to relive the good old days with its most devout fans. And I don’t know why they think now might be the right time. Maybe Cuomo just needed a little skillful persuasion from his bandmates. (Guitarist Brian Bell said he’s “praying” this tour will go down.)

But I do know that I’ll finally be OK with paying to see this band. Because nobody deserves “Beverly Hills.”