You might be forgiven for thinking that this is just another quirky, sort-of-ironic-although-I-don't-know-why decision by the band who seem intent on taking absolutely nothing seriously anymore. But there is more to the band's decision than meets the eye.
In a recent interview with Spin Magazine, Weezer's frontman Rivers Cuomo offered the following explanation for the bands decision to name the album Hurley.
"As usual, we struggled super hard trying to come up with an album title, trying to find some kind of phrase that summed up the whole aesthetic behind the album: Heavy Mental, Smaller than Life -- I was coming up with all kinds of stuff. But ultimately, we just went with some random word that doesn't really have anything to do with anything. I met and took a photo with Jorge Garcia who was Hurley from Lost; he just has this amazing vibe and his expression in that photo seemed so right, so we just called it Hurley."It seems a little confusing to me. What exactly came first? Did they really just think of a random word like Hurley and then saw this photo and thought "hey! he was Hurley on Lost! Let's stick his mug on the cover" or did they take the photo first and think "his face is amazing! Let's name our album after the character he played on Lost'. In other words, what came first, the chicken or the egg?
Well, it turns out neither came first. If you're not a big follower of Weezer news you may have missed the fact that a couple of months back it was announced that surf company 'Hurley' were funding the new Weezer album and would be releasing it exclusively in their stores. In addition to this, there was a competition run by Hurley for fans to design a Weezer t-shirt to be sold in stores.
Suddenly, Cuomo's explanation that the title "doesn't really have anything to do with anything" kind of sounds a bit misleading to me...
Weezer's guitarist Brian Bell confirmed these suspicions during an interview at the recent Mile High Music Festival. He explains the link between the surf company and the album title as the band being 'post-modernistic'. Whilst that's a novel way of explaining the decision away, it does strike me as rather disingenuous of Cuomo to completely ignore this fact when explaining the album's title.
The concept of 'selling out' probably isn't such a big deal these days, especially when it's becoming increasingly difficult for bands to actually sell records. But is naming your album after a company that helped fund its development going a little too far? Is it an album or an advertisement? Is this really post-modern or just plain misleading?
