Pacific Daydream

Pacific Daydream is the eleventh studio album by Weezer, released on October 27, 2017. 
==Overview==
Even before the release of The White Album in 2016, Rivers Cuomo was talking about the next release, which at the time was expected to be The Black Album. He wanted to push in a more darker, more modern-sounding direction in order to contrast with the White Album: “The next album is going to feel like an urban environment, night-time and gritty and hopefully a lot more modern sounds, synthesised sounds, samples maybe."Shutler, Ali. "Rivers Cuomo talks about Weezer’s “gritty” ‘Black’ album" Upset Magazine. 5 April 2016. https://www.upsetmagazine.com/news/rivers-cuomo-talks-about-weezers-gritty-black-album He also intended to not use White Album producer Jake Sinclair again, claiming that on the White Album "I was the voice that was saying, 'Let's do something radical.' And Jake [Sinclair], our producer, was very much the voice of conservatism, on the side of the old-school fans... He won on [White], and I'm gonna win on the next album, which is the Black Album."Wood, Mikael. "Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo is getting ‘comeback’ fatigue" Los Angeles Time. 25 March 2016. http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-ca-ms-rivers-cuomo-20160327-story.html In an interview at the Grammy Museum, Rivers also mentioned that Sinclair might be "too much" of a weezer fan to accomplish what they were going for. By the end of March, Rivers claimed he was halfway through writing the albumRyan, Patrick. "How Weezer's Rivers Cuomo used Tinder to write new album" USA Today. 30 March 2016. https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/music/2016/03/30/weezer-white-album-rivers-cuomo/82351992/.
On March 16, 2017, the single "Feels Like Summer" was released along with a prospective release date of Summer 2017 for the next album. However, aside from an acoustic version of the single dropping on June 29, Summer came and went without any news. However, on August 13, Scott Shriner mentioned in an interview that the next album might not be The Black Album anymore. He also stated that Butch Walker, who produced a few songs on Raditude, would return for the new album.Krewen, Nick. "New to Canada, Big Feastival promises to serve superior food on top of Weezer and more" Toronto Star. 13 August 2017. https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/music/2017/08/13/new-to-canada-big-feastival-promises-to-serve-superior-food-on-top-of-weezer-and-more.html Shortly thereafter, "Mexican Fender" was released online on August 17, 2017 with the announcement that album was to be called Pacific Daydream and had a release date of October 27, 2017.
"Mexican Fender" premiered on Zane Lowe's Beats 1 radio show, as did many of the White Album singles, along with an interview with the band. In the interview, Rivers said that the original plan was to release the Black Album, but the sessions were producing songs that didn't fit his vision. Initially, these songs were set aside in a dropbox folder called "beach" until this folder started growing faster than the Black Album one did, and the album "really came together." However, he mentioned the album was not yet completed at the time it was announced. He also insisted that the Black Album is still coming and is "pretty much ready." He also noted he was trying hard not to use the word "girl" in his songs.
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly about the album writing process, Rivers said “when I’m writing a song, I’m age-agnostic. I have Dropbox folders full of MP3s and then a Google spreadsheet called ‘Parts’ that has countless ideas. I don’t even keep track of when they were written or what album they were written for, because it doesn’t matter.” He also mentions a spreadsheet titled "Lyrics" that as about 5,500 "really cool lines" organized by BPM, syllable count, and key. He explained “When I’m writing a song and I get stuck, instead of trying to force myself to feel inspired, I can just go into the spreadsheet and search. There are usually 10 to 15 options; I just try them out to see which ones work magically. I hire talented programmers to help me automatically tag the lines.” The article also states that Rivers is learning the programming language Python so that he can do more of the coding himself.
Much like The White Album, the band members recorded their parts for Pacific Daydream separately and were almost never in the studio at the same time. Rivers told Entertainment Weekly that “they get to explore and do their thing without worrying about what I’m thinking. I’m invariably delighted when I hear the results.”
The album was nominated for the Best Rock Album Grammy on December 7, 2018.
==Release==
"Feels Like Summer" was the first single from the album and was released on March 16 of 2017 along with a music video. An acoustic version was released later in June and an alternate video parodying Guns N' Roses' Paradise City was released in late July. 
In mid August, Karl Koch posted a snapshot of the cover art (the bottom right corner with the Chinese text) with no caption on the weezer fan club facebook page. Shortly after, on August 17 of 2017, "Mexican Fender" was released along with the album cover, title, and release date. The other track titles remained unknown until September 12, when the tracklist was revealed along with the announcement that the song "Beach Boys" would be released the following Thursday, September 14. A fourth song, "Weekend Woman," was released on Thursday, October 5. "Happy Hour" was released on October 18 and was pushed to alternate radio as the album's second single. Half of the album (the entire first half) was released online before the release date.
The album was released on CD and vinyl as well as digitally. Preorder vinyl copies were exclusively colored, with 1000 copies being translucent with pink splatter and 2000 copies being white with black splatter. Indie record stores also received an exclusive coloring, being red with black splatter. Japanese copies of the album came with a papercraft glasses sheet.
==Title and Artwork==
Rivers' original title for the album was "Somebody's Daydream," inspired by a piece of Chinese philosophy written by Zhuangzi in which a man has a dream so vivid of a butterfly he is unsure if he is a man dreaming of a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming of a man. It was Patrick Wilson who suggested the change to "Pacific" rather than "Somebody's."
The artwork is originally a piece by Graphic designer Fran Rodriguez. The Chinese calligraphy in the bottom right hand corner translate to Pacific Daydream, with "Weezer" in the red chop mark.
 
==Track list==
==Personnel==
*Rivers Cuomo – guitars, lead vocals
*Patrick Wilson – drums
*Brian Bell – guitars, keyboard, backing vocals
*Scott Shriner – bass guitar, backing vocals
*Butch Walker - production, additional guitars, percussion, backing vocals, synthesizer
*Daniel Brummel - clarinet, acoustic guitar, slide guitar, piano
*Josh Alexander - piano
*Ihui Wu - trumpet
*Todd Stopera - engineering
*Eric Valentine - mixing
==References==
Category:Weezer albums
Category:2017 releases