THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “On May 10, 1994, DGC Records released Weezer, the self-titled debut album by Weezer. The story has been told and retold many times, but the crux of it was that no one thought it would do very well, even though all the band and the band’s small inner circle felt they’d made a really good album. The assumption was that people would say “who?” and laugh at the audacity of a new band putting out a debut album on a major label, with no fan base, no single out, nothing.
And… that’s exactly what happened! For a while anyway. About 90 copies sold the first week (just who were the 45 people we didn’t know who bought it knowing nothing about the contents?), and a steady trickle after that, as we drove around in our van playing such illustrious gigs as opening up for a screening of Rollerball, playing an actual battle of the bands (and not winning), and playing for fewer than 0 paying customers (it’s unclear how we got to “-2 sold,” but that’s what the promoter said…)
Finally, after a few months, 107 The End in Seattle started playing Undone. Before that, only a handful of college stations were even dabbling with the record. Things escalated quickly after that. KROQ Los Angeles added Undone, leading to a video which MTV played, which led to the us opening for Lush, and thanks to lines of kids at the shows, we switched from a van to a bus to keep up with the schedule, which soon included opening for Live, the Buddy Holly video… and so on — and on and on!
What else is there to say but thank you for the decades of love and support from all the fans, colleagues, friends and family? Well, there is something else to say, in fact! And that’s where The Blue Album 30th Anniversary Edition comes in. After 30 years, it’s a good idea to take a look through the ol’ attic and see what’s what. And it turns out, when it comes to The Blue Album, there was a whole lotta “what!” We decided that there was no need to simply repackage what’s already been uncovered (with the previous Deluxe Edition), when there was so much unreleased cool stuff still to reveal. Some of it has been buried for three decades, un-listened to!
Yes, The Blue Album is there in a fresh remastering, sounding better than ever (if that’s possible). But that’s where the familiarity stops. With the Blue 30 box set, you get a full disc of unreleased early recordings, a full disc of unreleased early live recordings, The Kitchen Tape in its fully realized album format (as the band hoped would be possible back in ’92, but never happened till now), the 1995 BBC Sessions in their entirely, and a 7″ of the entire 1993 LMU Sessions, which was the source of Jamie.
Then there’s a 24-page full-color Weezine with exclusive photos, extensive history and credits, four lithographs featuring dozens of never-before-seen band photos from the Blue Album photo shoot, a special sticker sheet representing the 10 Blue songs, a 12-sided die for all your Dungeon Mastering needs, and a stylish pin of our mascot Bokkus, first seen inside the booklet of The Blue Album. All packaged in a really cool “unraveling” sweater box!”
