Weezer have some conventional and unconventional ideas when it comes to artwork. For their first album, it seems that they stick the conventions of most covers of that time. It features all 4 members standing in a straight line looking as if they were told to do it. They are standing in front of a blue background, just to represent the title of the album. However, they are actually wearing unconventional clothes for their genre. It seems that they aren’t really dressed like alternative rock stars but like geeks.
The next album Pinkerton depicts the peaceful painting Kambara Yoru no Yuki ("Night Snow at Kambara"). This is fairly different from the last album cover, with none of the band actually making an appearance in the cover. It feels more sophisticated than the last album in the way that instead of just having them awkwardly standing in a line for a generic photo-shoot, it actually shows a piece of art.
The next album, Green,takes a lot of aspects from their first album Blue. It shows the band standing again in a line, but looking more relaxed. They are standing in front of a green background which does the same as blue by the background colour representing the album name. The clothing looks less informal, yet still fairly laid back; the colours they’re wearing almost match each others with a dark feel going on. Finally River’s is the only band member to actually be carrying an instrument. On first glance of this cover, compared to blue, it seems that the band actually looks like a band. It’s not just a garage dream, it’s a reality and it shows it with the band looking more relaxed and closer together showing that they’ve done this before, they’re rock stars, they are aware. Finally, the fact that they are standing closer together shows the closer relationship they’ve formed since the first album where they were just awkwardly standing next to each other.
Their forth studio album Maladroit takes more of the appearance of Pinkerton than any other album. Instead of the entire band appearing for a professional photo-shoot, it’s a drawing and a sophisticated one. The drawing shows a man (who seems upper-class) reading a book in his living room. The album Maladroit (meaning 'awkward') is conventional in the way that the album artwork reflects the name. What they’re depicting in the artwork may be 'maladroit' (an upper-class person reading a book); they may think this is just being awkward, that this person is just entirely different from the album itself, therefore reflecting the album name.
The fifth album Make Believe draws inspiration from both Blue and Green. The cover shows the band again standing in a line in front of a black background giving off an ‘emo’ vibe. The band are all wearing similar garments, full black, with a white glow around their figure. The colour scheme and design is the darkest so far, and the album on first glance is the ‘pop-emo’ brother of Blue and Green. Blue being garage-rock, Green being pop-rock and Make Believe being emo-rock.
The album, Red,’is the final ‘colour’ album. Red takes most of its inspiration from Blue. The cover resembles Blue’s composition of all members standing in a line, but this time looking more relaxed. The background again is the same as blue and green with the colour of it representing the album name. The biggest change in Red is the fact that the band are all wearing completely separate outfits.The most striking of all is Rivers’. His clothes remind you of a cowboy and he could be described to have a cowboy-personality as a ‘lone rider’ as at this point he’d already released two solo albums and his role in the band is playing lead guitar, lead vocals and writing the majority of the lyrics too. Looking back at the ‘colour’ albums at seems that Blue is the garage-rock, not really that famous, album cover. Green is the pop-rock, at the peak of popularity album cover. Red is the comeback album (as they all look like they’ve come from different lives in the album cover). Finally, Make Believe is the misfit out of them all. It hasn’t been given a colour, it doesn’t fit in. This heavily reflecting the dark, emo feel the album cover has.
The seventh album Raditude is a completely new take on album artwork. The cover depicts a normal looking living room but with a dog flying in the middle of it. This probably showing that the album is out of the ordinary, its nothing ordinary, unique in its own way. It’s rad and has attitude. Raditude. Another conventional album cover art reflecting the album name.
The eighth studio album Hurley shows intertextuality for the first time. The cover is simply just the face of actor Jorge Garcia (who plays Hurley in the TV show Lost) pulling a welcoming expression. The album cover may be representing the fact that the band may be ‘lost'. This could be musically, personally or just the fact that they were lost for an album cover. Alternatively, it could just be another way to portray the humorous and light-hearted tone of the band.
The final studio album Death to False Metal draws much from the album cover for Maladroit. The album reinforces Weezer’s ‘geeky side’ by naming the actual album after a phrase used by metal band Manowar (intertextuality). What makes it geeky, is that Manowar’s lyrics are based upon fantasy, sword and sorcery and Norse mythology. The artwork is simply just the opposite of the name. It just shows people looking happy, farming, giving life to plants and vegetables, where as Manowar’s lyrics are about battle and taking lives from people.
