Weezer
The Los Angeles band that made being a nerd sound like the coolest thing in the world. The 1994 "Blue Album" and its Spike Jonze videos — the Happy Days-themed "Buddy Holly" chief among them — turned Rivers Cuomo's sweater-clad geek-rock into a generational touchstone.
Weezer formed in Los Angeles in early 1992 and signed to Geffen Records in 1993. Their self-titled debut — the "Blue Album," produced by the Cars' Ric Ocasek — arrived in May 1994 and went on to sell over four million copies, powered by the Spike Jonze-directed videos for "Undone – The Sweater Song" and, especially, "Buddy Holly," which spliced the band into a Happy Days set.
Their 1996 follow-up, Pinkerton, was rawer and more confessional; it drew mixed reviews and sold modestly at the time, only to be reappraised years later as a cult classic. Frontman Rivers Cuomo retreated, and the band went on hiatus in the late 90s.
Weezer returned in 2001 with the "Green Album" and the hit "Hash Pipe," relaunching a career that has run prolifically ever since. But it's the Blue Album's sweaters, glasses, and garage-pop hooks that fixed them in the 90s — a geeky, hook-drunk sensibility later saluted in their 2008 "Pork and Beans" video, a reunion of the internet's early viral stars.
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