From meme to Grammy: Weezer's unlikely path to scoring a nomination for Best Rock Album

When a fan started a Twitter account to coax Weezer into covering Toto's 'Africa', nobody thought it would end up with the almost-forgotten band scoring a Grammy nomination
PUBLISHED DEC 17, 2018

As far as fan armies go, Californian alt-rockers Weezer take the cake for having one of the most polarized fan clubs of all time. Purist fans will often hold court over the fact that Weezer's heydays began with their 1994 self-titled debut and ended after their sophomore album, 1996's 'Pinkerton'.

Newer members of the fan club (and some longtime fans too) might argue that the band never lost its footing and that the Rivers Cuomo-led outfit's material only got more nuanced and complex with their more recent color-coded album releases (2001' 'The Green Album', 2008's 'The Red Album' and 2016's 'The White Album'). It's a debate that has been brewing for years and one look at the band's dedicated Reddit page is all you need to get a grasp of the seriousness with which fans voice their opinions.

This widespread fan tussle was captured beautifully in a skit on this weekend's episode of 'Saturday Night Live!' In the skit (which you can watch below), when Weezer's infectious cover of Toto's 'Africa' starts playing in the middle of a shuffle playlist during a holiday dinner, guests Leslie Jones and Matt Damon find themselves in a rapidly-escalating argument. 



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