I’ve been listening a lot this week to Weezer‘s self-titled album (Green) – my younger sister recently got her license and we’ve been sharing a car, and the girl is a total Weezer tragic and I can’t be bothered changing the CD so it’s been ‘Knock Down, Drag Out’ day after day.

It reminded me, though, of when I first heard the band – I can’t remember the year and Google isn’t helping, but I’d estimate around 2001 or 2002 when there was a Snickers ad using ‘Island in the Sun’ as their jingle. The ad showed a guy in a house looking out the window, with an attractive girl waving to him, only for him to later realise that she wasn’t actually wooing him but actually trying to alert him to the fact that his house was on fire. Pretty funny ad, but the song was what stood out to me the most (and apparently to Weezer too, seeing as they put it on not one, but two of their albums!).

I bought Maladroit around the same time and was pretty underwhelmed by it – honestly, the reason I bought it in the first place is because it was 10 dollars from some dodgy record hovel in Parramatta – a few good songs, sure (‘Keep Fishing’, awesome) but nothing outstanding. But a couple of years later I discovered the glory that is Pinkerton, and even now I struggle to think of any other album that is as consistently brilliant; it’s a timeless classic to me, even if Rivers Cuomo might disagree, even if it was critically slammed when it was released.

And what do I have to thank for my ongoing Weezer love?