Today is the 20th anniversary of the release of Weezer's debut album, known as "The Blue Album" by pretty much everybody, and it remains Weezer's most successful and best-loved album. If you've heard "The Blue Album" and love it as much as I do (which is as much a person can love an album without marrying it), you'd probably enjoy these eight bands a whole lot, too.
1. The Rentals
This is a pretty obvious one, but still worth mentioning. In between Weezer's first two albums, bassist Matt Sharp formed the Rentals and released its debut album Return of the Rentals, an excellent, synth pop-inspired take on Weezer's power pop formula. Is it a coincidence that Weezer's music went downhill when Sharp left the band? Maybe not...
2. That Dog
One of Weezer's labelmates during the '90s was That Dog, another L.A. power pop quartet, whose 1997 album Retreat from the Sun is an alt-rock classic. The band's music is essentially Weezer from a female perspective (or rather, Weezer is That Dog from a male perspective, since That Dog formed first).
3. The Apples in Stereo
Neutral Milk Hotel and Of Montreal may be the most popular bands of the Elephant 6 Collective, but the Apples in Stereo is by far the most accessible. Though the band has the typical E6 lo-fi psychedelic sound, its music is much more indebted to upbeat garage rock and traditional pop songwriting.
4. Shellshag
If you took the White Stripes' punk minimalism and blended it with Weezer's pop instincts, you'd get Shellshag, a brilliantly scruffy Brooklyn duo on New Jersey's Don Giovanni Records.
5. The Promise Ring
Weezer's early albums skirted the line between straightforward alt-rock and emo, but Milwaukee's the Promise Ring is what Weezer would have sounded like if it had leaned in closer to the emo sound. While many Midwest emo bands have a dark and challenging quality to their music, the Promise Ring is as poppy and sunny as the scene ever got.
6. Hides a Well
This New Jersey trio (whose album From a Safe Distance was my favorite of 2013) similarly treads emo as Weezer did, but from a more twee indie pop direction, rather than Weezer's anthemic, arena-ready rock.
7. Tacocat
In an era where rock music was intense and deadly serious, Weezer injected a much-needed brightness and sense of humor into the alt-rock landscape, which is exactly what Seattle's Tacocat is doing today. While even typically fun bands like the Flaming Lips have taken dark turns recently, Tacocat is writing insanely catchy pop-punk songs about getting your period.
8. Pity Sex
If Weezer had a woman in the band to supplement Rivers Cuomo's romantic yearnings, it would have sounded like Michigan's Pity Sex. Though fuzzier and less influenced by classic rock than Weezer, the infectious pop songcraft is undeniably present.
What other bands would you recommend to Weezer fans? Let us know in the comments section!
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