Songoftheday 9/5/19 - What's with these homies dissin' my girl? Why do they gotta front?

"Buddy Holly" - Weezer
from the album Weezer (Blue Album) (1994)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: ineligible to chart
Billboard Hot 100 Airplay peak: #18 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Airplay Top-40: 13

Today's song of the day comes from the California alternative rock band Weezer, who came together in Southern California after a few personnel switchups but always under the leadership of guitarist and singer Rivers Cuomo. With friend and drummer Patrick Wilson, Wilson's friend and bass player Matt Sharp, and guitarist Steve Cropper, the band got signed and started to work on their self-titled debut album (loosely called The Blue Album). However during the course of the recording Cuomo ended up firing Cropper, re-recording the guitar parts himself before bringing Brian Bell in to help finish the set. Weezer, produced by Ric Ocasek of the Cars, was released in May of 1994. A month later, the first single from the set, "Undone-The Sweater Song", was put out, and it became a decent rock radio hit, climbing to #6 on Billboard magazine's Alternative/Modern Rock chart and crossing over to #30 on their Mainstream Rock format list. On the pop Hot 100, the song landed at #57, while in the UK it became their first top-40 hit at #35.

Weezer's next move would be to release the retro yet current "Buddy Holly". A tip to Rivers' inherit geekiness, the song would give them a big radio reaction, as well as MTV love thanks to the music video directed by Spike Jonze that placed the band in an episode of Happy Days...

Since "Buddy Holly" wasn't commercially released in the U.S. as a 'single', it was not able to place on Billboard's official Hot 100 pop chart; however the tracked airplay on the radio component of the song had it peak at #18 on that tally in February of 1995. The song spent a week at #2 on the Alternative/Modern Rock chart, and crossed over to #34 on their Mainstream Rock format list as well. Internationally, the single peaked at #6 in Canada, and reached the top-40 in the UK (#12), Sweden (#14), Ireland (#19), and the Netherlands (#27).

A third song promoted to radio, the ballad "Say It Ain't So", also was not put out physically as a single to goose up album sales. It topped at #7 on the Alternative/Modern Rock radio chart, and peaked at #51 on the Airplay component of the Hot 100. But in the UK, the song scored their third straight top-40 hit at #37.

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Here's the band back right when the Weezer album was released in 1994...