KVRX has made it to our 30th anniversary. No 27 club for us; we’re here to stay.

It seems Weezer and their self-titled LP, commonly known as The Blue Album, are also here to stay. As Weezer embarks on their 30-year-anniversary tour of The Blue Album—which they call their “Voyage to the Planet Blue”—now is a better time than ever to visit (or revisit) the nerdy, lonely, Beach Boys adjacent record with a clean sound and a muddy atmosphere.

Growing up, my mom sang me “Surf, Wax, America” like a lullaby. My mom had my sister and I at 24 and 27 respectively, and in those three years between us, she had settled on some odd strategies.

When we were little, my mom would put on one of our six VHS’s in the apartment to get us to sleep: either a special edition Lord of the Rings film, or an original trilogy flick. Then, when me and my sister would get bored of the visuals and fall asleep, she would carry us both to our room. I was especially fussy. My mom would have to come over and rock me while my sister slept soundly. While she did, she’d sing a soft rendition of a Blue Album track.

Blue hit the shelves when my mom was fifteen years old and working in a Kansas City coffee shop. It was apparently pretty cool then. I fell into Weezer in my freshman year of high school, 2020. It was much less cool then.

It’s important to acknowledge the reputation Weezer carries now. They’re a ‘male manipulator’ act, joined at the hip with the likes of Radiohead and The Smiths in your high school boyfriend’s playlist. Hyper-emo, navel-gazing, sad boy rock. They’ve arguably had that reputation since their second album, Pinkerton, when lead guitarist and singer-songwriter Rivers Cuomo decided to bare his soul (and his Asian fetish) to the world—receiving the music critic equivalent of a sigh in return.

Armed with all this context, I still got really into Weezer in freshman year. Safe to say, all that Lord of the Rings and Star Wars I watched caught up to me. I’ve been nerdy and anxious since elementary school, a feeling often echoed by Cuomo in The Blue Album. Cuomo sang like he was drowning in shame, and as someone who felt like they were drowning everyday of the week, that was affirming.

Revisiting this album, in a less severe state, I’ve found myself a tad nostalgic. If there’s anything I think The Blue Album is about, it’s nostalgia. From the saccharine and obfuscated “Buddy Holly” to the self-referential and lonely “In The Garage,” Cuomo seems lost in his own past.

“Buddy Holly” presents this comedic retelling of Cuomo’s poor attempts to protect a girl, (‘What’s with these homies dissing my girl?’) where the premise for the song—a friend receiving racist remarks—is buried in the verse. In the liner notes on Cuomo’s Alone album, he noted the lyrics: ‘Your tongue is twisted / Your eyes are slit’ were some of the insults his bandmates called his Korean friend Kyung-he. Right after that, Cuomo croons out a line about protecting her, and then strums these massive, KISS-like licks on his guitar for the pre-chorus. The tone of the song buries some real-life drama between Cuomo and his bandmates; a habit of Cuomo’s which definitely contributed to the implosion of Weezer in 1998. (Bye-bye Matt Sharp, hello Mikey Welsh and Scott Shriner!)

“In The Garage” meanwhile, documents a different era of the band: nostalgic longing for the garage at the Amherst House, where Cuomo’s got ‘the Dungeon Masters Guide’ and ‘a 12-sided die.’ The song sells this longing with pithy lyrics, backed by droning guitar, a whiny delivery, and a genuinely sad use of the word “safe”. The nostalgic tone is funny at this point in Weezer’s career, especially considering they had only just signed with Geffen Records. “In the Garage” was written in this three song “burst of confidence and optimism” right after the signing, along with “Holiday” and “Buddy Holly.” Cuomo had just “made it,” and he already wanted to go home.

The opening line of “Holiday,” by the way, is likely ripped straight from the title of a Beach Boys song “Let’s Go Away for a While” off Pet Sounds. The Beach Boys’ influence on the record can’t be denied. It’s in the breakdowns, the ethereal tone, the odd entrances and exits of instruments (see the funky synth in “Buddy Holly”) and the sunny song about surfing in the USA. It, too, adds to this yearning for “before” present throughout the album.

Though Pinkerton is where Cuomo’s reputation for confessional songwriting was cemented, Blue is packed with songs that say just as much. (But maybe with a bit less screeching in their production, thanks to Ric Ocasek’s poppy sensibilities.) And after 30 years of student radio here at KVRX, I can think of no better soundtrack than Weezer’s yearning, nostalgic, and somehow self-referential, Blue Album.