Weezer Celebrates 30th Anniversary of 'Buddy Holly' with Vevo Footnotes
Weezer have just celebrated the 30th anniversary of their critically acclaimed debut album Weezer (commonly known as the Blue Album). One of Weezer’s beloved classics of that album is the song “Buddy Holly” and in the latest edition of Vevo Footnotes the behind-the-scenes stories about the production of the award-winning music video are revealed.
One of the most surprising details revealed in the video is that “Buddy Holly” almost failed to make the cut. The band wasn’t too confident with the track. It took their producer, The Cars frontman Ric Ocasek to persuade Weezer to include “Buddy Holly” on the Blue Album.
“Ric said we’d be stupid to leave it off the album“
- said ex-bassist Matt Sharp.
“Buddy Holly” became an iconic video of the 90s due to director Spike Jonze. The video was a homage to the popular 70s TV series Happy Days. Jonze combined actual scenes from the show with newly shot footage making it seem like Weezer appeared on an episode of Happy Days. The 50s setting of Happy Days complimented the chorus lyrics of the song which were written by frontman Rivers Cuomo whose own retro style took inspiration from early rock and roll legend Buddy Holly. To add to the effect, Jonze had Happy Days cast member Al Molinaro make a cameo.
While Jonze was able to convince Al Molinaro to make an appearance, he had a more challenging time convincing the other cast members to even allow their likenesses to be utilized in the video. Fortunately, Jonze was able to reach out to Henry Winkler who played the iconic character of The Fonz. Winkler thought the video was a great idea and he persuaded the other original cast members to give their approval.
According to Sharp, the Happy Days cast were:
“apprehensive at first, but when The Fonz said, ‘I’m in. If The Fonz says it’s cool, it’s cool.’”
The popularity of “Buddy Holly” is partly due to the song being included in the CD-ROM campaign for Microsoft’s Windows 95. This deal was done without the knowledge of Weezer themselves. Their label Geffen negotiated the deal without informing the band. Not only was the band clueless about the deal, but they also weren’t computer savvy.
“I didn’t have a computer. It was literally like living inside the eye of the hurricane.”
- said guitarist Brian Bell.
The video for ”Buddy Holly” was popular with fans and critically acclaimed. At the MTV Video Awards “Buddy Holly” was awarded Best Directing and Best Editing honors. Spike Jonze would collaborate with Weezer again for the song, “Undone – The Sweater Song.”
Weezer are not done celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Blue Album. The band plans to tour this fall and play the entire album.
