Weezer (The White Album)

Weezer also known as "The White Album," is Weezer's tenth studio album. It was revealed on January 14th, 2016 and was released on April 1st. It's their first album to be released under Crush Music. A digital-only deluxe version was released on October 7th, 2016. It's notable for mixing more modern pop-styled tracks with the classic alt-rock sound of the band. The album garnered a Grammy nomination in the category of Best Rock Album.
==Overview==
After the disappointing sales of the previous album, Everything Will Be Alright in the End, the band left Republic Records and joined Crush Music. Soon after, Jonathan Daniel, founder and CEO of Crush Music, suggested to Rivers that they should "write a beach record". 
"It was one of those things where it’s so obvious that we never even realized it”, Cuomo said to the L.A. Times in a interview.www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-ca-ms-rivers-cuomo-20160327-story.html
A new producer was signed, Jake Sinclair, whom the band met during the recording for Raditude. Sinclair, being a self-proclaimed Weezer fan, posted on the website allthingsweezer.com after the album was announced to reassure fans and share pieces of information from the album. 
When work began for the album, Sinclair invited Cuomo to his home studio, prompting Cuomo to show his Dropbox account to Jake, which had roughly 235 songs and demos. 
Only one song would make the cut: "California Kids" (originally titled "California" and recorded for his Japanese language side-project, Scott & Rivers), which became the inspiration for the "beach/nautical theme of the album"
The album has some classic-sounding songs like the Pinkerton style "Do You Wanna Get High?" and the The Blue Album-sounding "L.A. Girlz." There are also some new and modern sounding tracks like "Thank God for Girls" and "Jacked Up." Rivers has said that he was pushing for the new sound, while Jake wanted more classic style songs.
 
The album received bonus track "Prom Night" in Japan and a digital deluxe version with four extra tracks was released on October 7th. The album was nominated for the Best Rock Album Grammy on December 5, 2016.
==Writing==
Much of the album's lyrics come from Cuomo's stream of consciousness diary as well as his experiences living in California. 
He also used the dating app Tinder to meet up with people and then wrote about his experiences. 
New songwriting techniques are also employed, notably the concept of cutting up lyrics and adding them on a spreadsheet, so they can be selected and utilized on songs.
Fans on allthingsweezer.com have matched up some of the album's lyrics (particularly sections of "Endless Bummer" and "Prom Night") with streams of consciousness writings on Cuomo' now-defunct tumblr page.
Cuomo annotated the lyrics of "Thank God for Girls,"https://genius.com/Weezer-thank-god-for-girls-lyrics "Do You Wanna Get High?,"https://genius.com/Weezer-do-you-wanna-get-high-lyrics and "King of the World"https://genius.com/Weezer-king-of-the-world-lyrics on the website Genius.com. He was featured on the SongExploder podcast, where he details the writing and development of "Summer Elaine and Drunk Dori". "Do You Wanna Get High?" was written about Cuomo's girlfriend in 2000, the same subject as "O Girl" and "O Girlfriend." The song shares a similar name with COR#351 (October 2001, "D'ya Wanna Get High?"), however when asked about it on Facebook, 
Cuomo said the song was written from 2014-2015. "King of the World," which is about Cuomo's wife Kyoko Ito Cuomo, was annotated by both of them togetherhttps://genius.com/8616520. "Summer Elaine and Drunk Dori" is about two mothers Cuomo met at his daughter's school.
Bandmate Brian Bell cowrote "Endless Bummer" and "L.A. Girlz" .
==Release==
On October 20, 2015, "Thank God for Girls" was played live at a small iHeart Radio show in Burbank, California. This was followed by an official single release on October 26th. A week later, on November 2nd, the song "Do You Wanna Get High?" debuted on Zane Lowe's Beats 1 radio show on Apple Music. The song was officially released the following day. In interviews, Cuomo insisted that these songs were not part of a new album and that they were just two songs. In January of 2016, weezer.com became a blank white screen and the band's Facebook and Twitter pages posted blank white pictures. A video was posted to the band's youtube channel that was a white screen with static in the background. On the morning of January 14, the album was announced as The White Album with a release date of April 1 in addition to a new song and video for "King of the World".
Producer Jake Sinclair revealed himself on allthingsweezer.com as user "wannabeezer" and began to share insight on the new album. As a weezer fan himself, his goal was to make a weezer album that would change the third album on people's rankings. Two more songs were released before the album: "L.A. Girlz" on February 16th, and "California Kids" which leaked on Apple Music for a short amount of time. The latter was a remake of the 2014 Scott & Rivers song "California." The song was officially released on March 9. 
Unlike past albums, the album would not be leaked until a day or two before release. On release, it received critical praise and fan acclaim, and the band launched a Summer tour with Panic! at the Disco.
On October 5th, a digital deluxe version was announced to release on the 7th. It contained previously released "I Love the USA" as well as the previously announced "Fake Smiles and Nervous Laughter" which later received a vinyl release in December. It also includes two new tracks, "Friend of a Friend" and a new remix of "Jacked Up" featuring Fitz of Fitz and the Tantrums & Nadya of Pussy Riot.
The album was nominated for the Best Rock Album Grammy on December 5, 2016.
The album was released digitally as well as on CD and vinyl. The first 400 vinyl copies were colored blue, green, and white. The next 4000 copies were colored all white. All other copies are black.
==Track list==
===Bonus tracks===
==Reception==
===Critics===
The White Album was received well, but not as well as the previous album Everything Will Be Alright in the End. Allmusic praised the quirky lyrics and Jake Sinclair's production in its 4.5 star review, and NME awarded the album 4 stars for taking itself less seriously compared to the dramatic pretenses of EWBAITE. Pitchfork gave the album a 6.2, disparaging the new sounding songs and claiming most of the value was found in the throwback tracks.
====Individual songs====
===Fans===
The White Album is very well loved by fans. Although lead single "Thank God for Girls" remains divisive, the album is seen as a continued return to form while fixing the problems of it's predecessor.
==Personnel==
*Rivers Cuomo – guitars, lead vocals
*Patrick Wilson – drums
*Brian Bell – guitars, backing vocals
*Scott Shriner – bass guitar, backing vocals
*Christopher Wray - synthesizers
*Michael "Fitz" Fitzpatrick - vocals
*Nadya Tolokno - vocals
*Ryan Spraker - piano and additional production
*Scott Chesak - piano and additional production
*Alex Goose - organ and additional production
*Jonny Coffer - piano and additional production
*Jake Sinclair – production, engineering
*Suzy Shinn - engineering
*Tanner Sparks - engineering
*Welsey Seidman - assistant engineering
*Claudius Mittendorfer - mixing
*Pete Lyman - mastering
==See Also==
* wannabeezer
* Weezer (The Black Album)
==References==
Category:Weezer albums
Category:2016 releases
Category:Self-titled records