An Oral History of Weezer Promising Their New Anthology Volition Be Better

Photo: Maya Robinson and Photos by Corbis

Weezer'due south new album Everything Volition Be Alright in the Finish, out yesterday, is a course correction for the ring after a serial of contempo missteps. How exercise nosotros know this? Because since 2001's Weezer (The Light-green Anthology), basically every Weezer album has been pitched every bit a class correction for the band subsequently a serial of recent missteps. (There'due south one exception, and the identity of that album may surprise y'all!) Accept a expect:

All quotes, except where noted, past Rivers Cuomo.

The album: Weezer (The Green Album) (2001)
The previous missteps: Disappearing into cocky-indulgence on 1996'due south Pinkerton, so disappearing entirely for five years.
The correction: Returning to the sound of The Blue Album, with the help of producer Ric Ocasek.

" [Pinkerton] is simply a sick album, sick in a diseased sort of style … This [new] record is purely musical." —Rolling Stone

"[Pinkerton] is a hideous record. I t was such a hugely painful fault that happened in front of hundreds of thousands of people and continues to happen on a grander and grander scale and simply won't go away." —Entertainment Weekly

The album: Maladroit (2002)
The previous missteps: Overreacting to the (all the same-embarrassing) failure of Pinkerton by creating an album of emotionless sheen.
The correction: Embracing the heavy-metallic audio that was plain Cuomo's first true passion.

"After you've made a record that'southward pretty straight pop stuff, y'all kinda wanna bust loose on the guitar a picayune bit … I don't know what the hell I was thinking [with the guitar solos on TheGreen Anthology]. I adopt shredding." —Guitar World

" I grew upwardly on metal, and I learned how to play the guitar past playing metal, and I was always in metal bands equally a kid. Then, actually the abnormality was the first two Weezer records. I was very consciously repressing my bodily self." —CDNOW.com

" The Green Album was by and large fake girl songs." —Spin

" I don't similar Pinkerton. @#%$ it's a @#%$ album! I wish people would exit it alone." —Kerrang

The album: Brand Believe (2005)
The previous missteps: Not trying difficult enough, emotionally and professionally.
The correction: Writing more from the eye, and getting Rick Rubin to produce.

"On Maladroit  … the songwriting on my part wasn't great. … [Pinkerton] has the sound of someone who's not actually in impact with other people, and I don't know if that's good." —50.A. Weekly

"On albums 3 and four, I wasn't using my feelings to write the songs … I was similar 'Alright, I'll shut myself down completely, I'll be like a machine.'" — Alternative Press

"I'thou a chip dislocated when I hear [ Maladroit ].  … I like some of the cloth on it, but the sound of information technology doesn't do much for me." —Brian Bell, toAlternative Press

"[Working with a producer for the kickoff fourth dimension] is  one of the big differences in the quality of this album compared to the album before, on which we didn't exercise much pre-product." — Guitar.com

The album: Weezer (The Scarlet Anthology) (2008)
The previous missteps: Falling into a rut, and also kind of hating each other.
The correction: Giving the ring'southward not-Cuomo members more of a voice.

"T here was one overarching value that remained pretty consistent from the kickoff [through] the end of this pretty long album-making process and that [was] the challenge to for each of us to recommit again and over again to what makes us excited near music, to try to stick to that and not sell out, give in, or say 'Let'southward just do it Rivers' way,' or … 'Let's do what our fans desire.'" —American Songwriter

"We simply went ' Nosotros've gotta make some changes; we have to exist a trivial fresh in our approach, because y'all can't do this for 15 years without falling into … the same patterns over and over." —Patrick Wilson, to American Songwriter

"[The bad vibes of Brand Believe ] seem so irrelevant now, like a unlike lifetime." —Scott Shriner, who in 2005 called Weezer "a fucked-up band," to Spin

The album: Raditude (2009)
The previous missteps: None! Everything is happy!
The course correction: In advance of what is well-nigh universally regarded as the band's worst album, Cuomo warned listeners to expect something they'd never heard before, which, in this case, meant collaborations with Lil Wayne and Dr. Luke.

"If [fans] want to hear a literal dictation of what an artist'south life is like in their songs, and then they're non going to like some of the lyrics on the record. But songs that are complete fantasies and have zilch to practise with the literal facts of an artist'due south life can be really fun, too." — Pitchfork

The album: Hurley (2010)
The previous missteps: Losing themselves in empty escapism.
The class correction: Getting their stone sound back, once more. (This was likewise around the time the ring did a Pinkerton nostalgia tour and had to have back the mean things they said near it.)

"People [who didn't like The Carmine Album and Raditude ] will be very pleased with Hurley ." — Mother Jones

"There's definitely going to be more raw rock energy on this one again." —Connecticut Mail service

" I did have a conversation with Rivers about [Raditude]. And he said, to put my listen at ease, that this is just one album out of many more than that nosotros are going to brand in our career. " —Bell, to The Waster

[The Crimson Album] was a 100% democratic experiment, but on a creative level we're definitely not a republic now." —GuitarCenter.com

" Correct effectually 2001, when we put out The Green Anthology, I said a lot of negative, inflammatory things about Pinkerton … But ever since I've been trying to make information technology articulate that, of course, I think information technology's a bright album. I love information technology." —Exclaim

The album: Everything Will Be Alright in the End (2014)
The previous missteps: Full general shittiness.
The course correction: Returning to the audio of The Blue Anthology and Pinkerton, with the assistance of producer Ric Ocasek. They've come up full circle!

"I idea I'd detect a new audience, I forgot that disco sucks." —lead single"Dorsum to the Shack"

"[Raditude] was . . . an adjustment. I might have been upset." —Shriner, to Rolling Rock

"[Hurley] was such a weird tape. We weren't exactly swinging for the fence." —Wilson, to Rolling Stone

"This record sounds like it's going to accept the tight structure of Blue Album with a trivial flake more abandon similar Pinkerton." —Wilson, to Amusement Weekly

"Y ou can't really take for granted this astonishing connection that happens between us and an audience … Y ou tin't actually accept that lightly and just say [as on Ratitude], 'Well, maybe let'south practice a hip-hop anthology next time.'" —Guitar Earth

Weezer'due south New Album Will Be Better, They Promise