Vinyl love: Weezer “Weezer”

(Vinyl Love is a series of posts that quite simply lists, describes, and displays the pieces in my growing vinyl collection. You can bet that each record was given a spin during the drafting of each corresponding post.)

Artist: Weezer
Album Title: Weezer
Year released: 1994
Year reissued: 2016
Details: Mobile Fidelity, limited edition, numbered 011775, 180 gram, transparent blue

The skinny: Just over three weeks ago, fellow blogger Super Dekes over at Thunder Bay Arena Rock posted a review of Weezer’s self-titled album (also widely-known as ‘the Blue album’) and mentioned how he had finally gotten a copy of it on vinyl the previous summer. Coincidentally, I had tracked down a vinyl copy of it myself that very week and when I told Deke so, he suggested I also write a review. Well, I figured one of my ‘Vinyl love’ posts would work just as well, so here we are. I actually saw Weezer live before I heard this album. They opened for shoe gazers Lush at Toronto’s Warehouse in the summer ’94 and at the time, I was only vaguely aware of “The sweater song”. Nonetheless, I was blown away by their set – all crunchy guitars and Beach Boys harmonies – and told Rivers Cuomo as much when I spotted him at the merch table. A friend of mine in university later dubbed a copy of the album for me to cassette and I played the hell out of it. This debut is still Weezer’s most successful piece of music in my books, a classic, and though I spent a few dollars more than did Deke, it was well worth it to procure this limited edition Mobile Fidelity release. They do such a great job all round, what with the remastering, the pressing, and the immaculate packaging. Splendid.

Standout track: “The world has turned and left me here”