weezer: weezer (Blue Album)

Click highlighted tracks for Real Player sound clips.

Of all the albums where I can remember their original release, I'm willing to argue with anybody that this is the best and for certain parts of my generation, it is the album that defines them (along with the second weezer album pinkerton).  It all started so innocently while watching the Daily RSVP on Much Music (the Canadian version of MTV) after school when the VJ uttered, "You can't stop requesting it so we can't stop playing it... Buddy Holly, Weezer..."  I don't need to describe the now famous video (ranked #27 of all-time by VH1) but needless to say, never has somebody fallen that fast for a band.  Although the term "geek rock" was years away, here was a sound and a song that I could relate to.  Fortunately, they were more than a one-hit-wonder and I discovered that the Blue Album was packed with nine other amazing songs, each with its own unique sound, theme, story and musical traces to the great influences of Dylan, The Beach Boys, The Beatles, Kiss and Holly himself.  As Steve Jobbs of Apple would say, it was insanely great (and it still is).  Although a lot Weezer fans don't share my view that this is their best album, I don't care because it is impossible for anybody else to understand how these songs are intertwined with memories from 1994-5.  I remember pumping my fist at the prom/grad and shouting "I sink and I die" to a blasting Undone - the Sweater Song, bouncing along to Buddy Holly and then dancing to "Only in dreams" while trying not to crush a female friend's corsage (and toenails of course).  I also remember watching as David Letterman introduced Weezer ("... and I ain't scared of them...") and as they debuted their new single "Say it ain't so" on the Late Show my Dad asked me, "Who are these Geezer guys anyways?  They're terrible!"  So for me, this is more than an album but a link to a happy time and place in my life that will always keep Weezer in my good books.  And after seeing them in concert and being just a few people away from the stage during the Buddy Holly/Surf Wax encore, the link is that much stronger.  I actually own two copies of this CD.  The first became scratched and is now a coaster on my coffee table.  It's replacement pretty much lives in Quark's trunk mounted CD changer.  "You take your car to work, I'll take my board!"  =w=

No, this is not my NB but... ...its owner has good taste in cars and music!