Weezer surprised fans earlier this week with the announcement of their new album, OK Human, which will be released next week on January 29 via Crush Music and Atlantic Records. Now, they have released the first single off the upcoming album, “All My Favorite Songs.”
Ahead of the single, Weezer shared an “All My Favorite Songs” playlist on Spotify, featuring songs by Neil Young, Johnny Cash, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and more. The accompanying video features Weezer getting ready to record, while the single features orchestral notes beneath Rivers Cuomo’s vocals, where he sings “All my favorite songs are slow and sad/I don’t know what’s wrong with me” throughout the chorus.
The video features phone screens turning into doorways, leading to where Weezer performs the single in a recording studio while Cuomo sits at the piano. The band stares at their phones, one boy throwing Cuomo’s phone to the ground, which causes another to appear in Cuomo’s hand. The thrown phone turns into yet another doorway, the video returning to where it had started.
OK Human was created at the start of the pandemic, when Weezer was set to release their album Van Weezer (which is now due on May 7, 2021) and embark on the Hella Mega Tour alongside Green Day and Fall Out Boy. The album was greatly influenced by The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds, while the album title itself is a reference to Radiohead’s OK Computer. Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo wrote the album at his piano, and was created with a 38-piece orchestra.
Other influences that were pulled into OK Human include Harry Nilsson’s Nilsson Smilsson, Randy Neman’s self-titled debut album, the catalogue of The Carpenters and Francoise Hardy’s Message Personnel. The announcement of the album came as a pleasant surprise to fans, who were gearing up for the release of Van Weezer, which has already released three singles, including “The Beginning of the End,” “Hero” and “End of the Game.” Both of the albums follow 2019’s Weezer (The Black Album).
Photo credit: Brett Padelford