They're Still Making Noise: Weezer's Early Albums Reissued, 'Pinkerton' Finally Platinum

Weezer's first six albums are getting the vinyl reissue treatment this fall from Geffen/UMe. To be released simultaneously on Friday, Oct. 28, the sextet of pivotal alternative albums from the Los Angeles nerd rock combo includes 1994's The Blue Album, 1996's Pinkerton, 2001's The Green Album, 2002's Maladroit, 2005's Make Believe and 2008's The Red Album.

As reported by Pitchfork, the "Beverly Hills" hitmakers' latest reissue campaign comes on the heels of the seminal Pinkerton album's 20th anniversary. Pinkerton, the once-derided but now generally beloved alt-rock classic, was released on Sept. 24, 1996, and remained only RIAA-certified Gold until its two-decades-delayed Platinum certification was officially granted last week, per Billboard.

In 2010, Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo reminisced to Rolling Stone about Pinkerton for its Deluxe Edition re-release, recalling the sophomore album's early incarnation as Songs from the Black Hole:

"I was planning to make the second Weezer album a sort of space-travel-themed rock opera with lots of synthesizers and new wave flavor over the Weezer rock sound. ... I had this really painful surgical procedure on my leg, which lasted 13 months in all and it took me to a place, emotionally, where the whole idea of this whole rock opera started to feel too whimsical for where I was emotionally, going through the pain. ... so I scrapped the whole idea and went to a more serious and dark place."

Weezer has released ten studio albums overall. Their last with Universal Music Group (under Geffen or its related umbrella company Interscope) was 2009's Raditude. Since then, the group has experimented with indie labels and other major subsidiaries in issuing their music. Hurley was released by punk label Epitaph Records in 2010, 2014's Everything Will Be Alright in the End via Republic Records and last spring's The White Album by Warner Music Group's Atlantic Records.

Below, relive Weezer's moving 1995 performance of "Say It Ain't So" on the Late Show with David Letterman (with Cuomo sporting giant khakis in a feeble attempt to conceal the Ilizarov apparatus on his right leg, the leg brace resultant of his aforementioned Pinkerton-inciting orthopedic surgery).

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