3 Weezer Songs You Should Know That Are Not on the Blue Album

On May 10, 1994, Weezer released its self-titled debut. The band can be seen—not really looking like a band—on the front cover against a plain blue backdrop, giving the album its unofficial title. It arrived a month after Kurt Cobain’s death and marked a turning point in alternative guitar music.

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Weezer became something like Nirvana. They dominated MTV, and songs like “Buddy Holly,” “Say It Ain’t So,” and “Undone – The Sweater Song” defined the mid-’90s in a way “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and “Come as You Are” had previously done a few years earlier.

Even the retro Happy Days-inspired music video for “Buddy Holly” echoed Nirvana’s Ed Sullivan Show parody, “In Bloom.” And Rivers Cuomo’s songs were as ubiquitous as Cobain’s, kicking off a new generation of emo and power pop bands.

But Weezer didn’t stop with the Blue Album. Here are three tracks not on the debut that you should know.

“El Scorcho” from Pinkerton (1996)

Following the success of the Blue Album, Rivers Cuomo became bored with rock music and left to study classical composition at Harvard. His songwriting grew darker, less playful. “El Scorcho” borrows lines from a classmate’s essay and describes a crush. Cuomo wants the girl to notice him. He’s isolated and lonely and, instead, is left to write songs about how he feels.

How stupid is it?
I can’t talk about it
I gotta sing about it
And make a record of my heart

“Hash Pipe” from Weezer (The Green Album) (2001)

Weezer returned with producer Ric Ocasek and returned to form on their third album. Cuomo also brought back the geek humor that buoyed the Blue Album. Meanwhile, “Hash Pipe” could have been an Ozzy Osbourne song. But the Prince of Darkness didn’t use the idea. Though it’s an interesting thought experiment to imagine Osbourne singing about his boogies.

I can’t help my feelings
I’ll go out of my mind
These players come to get me
’Cause they’d like my behind

“Island in the Sun” from Weezer (The Green Album) (2001)

Here, Cuomo echoes Brian Wilson with a sunny anthem about running away to the golden sea. It’s a departure from Weezer’s Pavement-by-way-of-Yngwie guitar riffs. There’s also sweet vulnerability in Cuomo’s words—away from his routine sarcasm as an emotional shield. He famously kept a binder detailing the DNA of Nirvana, Oasis, and Green Day songs. Listening to his early period writing, Cuomo already had it figured out.

On an island in the sun
We’ll be playing and having fun
And it makes me feel so fine
I can’t control my brain

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