Weezer

Influences:
 * Nirvana, The Pixies, Scorpions, The Cars, Sebadoh, Sonic Youth, Green Day, Oasis, The Beach Boys, KISS, The Beatles, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Flaming Lips

Weezer is an Alternative Rock/Power Pop band formed in Los Angeles in 1992, with its current lineup consisting of Rivers Cuomo (lead vocals, guitar), Brian Bell (rhythm guitar, backing vocals), Scott Shriner (bass), and Patrick Wilson (drums, occasional guitar). Its past members were Jason Cropper (guitar, 1992-1994), Matt Sharp (bass, backing vocals, 1992-1998) and Mikey Welsh (bass, backing vocals, 1998-2001)

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)
 * Death to False Metal (2010)
 * This one features entirely new recordings of rare or unreleased songs and not those songs' original versions, ergo its much less of a "compilation" and more of an actual studio album.

Interestingly, despite several airplay hits such as "Buddy Holly" and "Island in the Sun", their only Billboard hit is "Beverly Hills" at no. 10.

They suffer from a really badly Broken Base. While all of their fans can agree that The Blue Album and Pinkerton are really good, some fans will argue that Make Believe and The Red Album were their best works while '90s purists consider them either average or horrible. The Green Album and Maladroit tend to be spared from these debates and instead disappear into obscurity. The point where many people agree on is that their "mainstream" albums are Love It or Hate It, but B-sides tend to be interesting.

Weezer provides examples of:
"Quiet Riot got me started with the banging of my head
 * Badass Boast: "The Greatest Man that Ever Lived"
 * Cloudcuckoolander: Rivers, at least in his online series Let's Write a Sawng.
 * Creator Backlash: Due to the initial poor reception, the band all but threw Pinkerton into Canon Discontinuity for years, until it seemed that Rivers Cuomo was the only person left who disliked the album.
 * 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.
 * 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.
 * Epic Rocking: "Only in Dreams".
 * Executive Meddling: "Beverly Hills" started as a fairly straight and optimistic song about how the singer genuinely wishes he could join that society but got mutated into something much more bitter and sarcastic-sounding.
 * The band wanted to produce Blue themselves, but Geffen pushed them to get an outside producer, so they settled for Ric Ocasek. When Green came around the label also said no since their self-produced Pinkerton had tanked commercially and critically, so they once again brought in Ocasek.
 * The band initially wanted to use a collage of sampled dialogue for "Undone - The Sweater Song" playing on the theme of contrasting extremely optimistic and extremely depressed dialogue. Geffen nixed the idea at the last minute since they weren't eager to go through a long sample clearance process, and as a replacement Matt and the band's friends Karl Koch and Mykel Allan recorded the now-famous spoken-word dialogue. Geffen's rejection came after the sessions for the album were finished, so the dialogue was recorded in Los Angeles and had to be flown to New York to be added in during mixing.
 * Fan Nickname: Their three self titled albums are generally known by the dominant color of each one's cover art (Blue, Red, and Green).
 * Guest Star Party Member: The band's archivist Karl Koch has several appareances 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.
 * I Am the Band: Rivers has always had a dictatorial streak as a frontman (Matt Sharp left the band due to this), but it reached an apex around 2001-2002 when he 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-writes on Raditude and Hurley.
 * Long Runner Lineup: The band hasn't changed since 2001 (though only Rivers and Patrick Wilson are founding members),
 * Mondegreen: One of the more widespread ones came from "Hash Pipe"'s chorus, where the lines "I've got my eyes wide" and "You got your Big G's" were misheard as "I've got my ass wipe" and "You got you big cheese".
 * Mohs Scale of Rock and Metal Hardness: Generally in the 4 to 5 range. Pinkerton, however, is mostly in the 5 to 6 range (with Butterfly being a 1).
 * Notable Music Videos: Every single one, except the ones associated with the Pinkerton album (see Crowning Moment of Awesome above).
 * One of Us: The guys of Weezer are geeks. Rivers Cuomo is actually a Sailor Moon fan, as evidenced by two of his guitars.
 * Rivers is also a big soccer fan and wrote "Represent" as an unofficial anthem for the U.S. national team for the 2010 World Cup.
 * Parental Abandonment: "Say It Ain't So" is about this.
 * The Pete Best: Jason Cropper, who left/was kicked out of the band (depends on who you ask) during the Blue Album sessions because his girlfriend became pregnant, forcing Rivers to record all the guitars. He only earned one writing credit, for creating the acoustic intro of "My Name Is Jonas".
 * Precision F-Strike: "Can't Stop Partying"
 * Pretty Fly for a White Guy: Rivers Cuomo, at least occasionaly.
 * 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.
 * Self-Backing Vocalist: Rivers did this on Green, in contrast to the Vocal Tag Team method the band used in The Nineties.
 * Self-Titled Album: Three of them!
 * Shout-Out: "In the Garage" is basically an extended, geeky shout-out to all the things Rivers loves (Kiss, Dungeons and 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").
 * Every meme ever in the "Pork and Beans" video.
 * 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:

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.
 * Step Up to the Microphone: Every member gets a shot at singing lead on The Red Album.
 * Take That / Writer Revolt: "Pork and Beans" is one against record executives.
 * Three Chords and the Truth: Especially in The Green Album and Maladroit, which clock at less than 30 minutes.
 * 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").
 * What Could Have Been: Pinkerton was very nearly a concept album called Songs from the Black Hole, which was a space rock opera about a horny captain's exploits on board a ship bound to save a distant, dying planet. While Pinkerton is hailed as a classic now, it's hard not to at least wonder what Songs would have been like. Fans have compiled demos to something resembling a complete album and some of those demos appear on Rivers Coumo's two official Alone demo compilations. They're floating about the internet if you care to look.
 * Word Salad Lyrics: Weezer lyrics are generally pretty straightforward, but then there's "Dope Nose", which Rivers Cuomo admits has "no meaning whatsoever".
 * Most of The Green Album and Maladroit qualify as this - they're occasionally criticised 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": "And I don't believe in a burn like that \ I pick up my doughnuts for free".