Southern California based pop-rock band Weezer has some of the most devoted fans in the music industry, and I consider myself to be one of them. Weezer’s music has had some incredible highs, with excellent albums like “The Blue Album,” Pinkerton, and “The White Album,” but unfortunately some confusing lows, like less well-received albums, Raditude and Make Believe. Recently, Weezer seems to be on something of a hot streak. While their most recent release, 2017’s Pacific Daydream may not have exactly clicked with the fans, the two proceeding albums, “The White Album” and Everything Will Be Alright In The End, released in 2016 and 2014 respectively, are considered by many, myself included, to be the band’s best work in years. With this newly rediscovered greatness, the anticipation for Weezer’s next release is high, and Weezer’s lead singer, Rivers Cuomo, seems to enjoy toying with his fanbase through his Twitter account.

The “Black Album” was first confirmed to be planned after the release of “The White Album” by lead singer and songwriter, Rivers Cuomo. Cuomo has since stated that the album will be darker and more experimental than the band’s previous releases. This is particularly exciting news for fans, because many, myself included, consider Pinkerton to be Weezer’s best album. Pinkerton is, at times, a very dark record and certainly on the more experimental side of Weezer’s history.

The next we heard from Weezer came with the release of the single, “Feels Like Summer” in March of 2017. It was assumed by most fans that this song would be featured on The Black Album, as it fit the description of being experimental (for Weezer) and featuring darker lyrics. This song received mixed feedback from the fans. Personally, while I do acknowledge that the song is quite different from the typical Weezer style, it still is an excellent song after giving it a few listens.

            Following the release of “Feels Like Summer,” Rivers Cuomo continued to mention The Black Album in interviews, reiterating the fact that it will be darker than previous Weezer releases. However, an announcement in August of 2017 sparked confusion within the fanbase.

 In August of 2017, Weezer announced their next full-length studio album, titled Pacific Daydream, featuring the song, “Feels Like Summer.” This ignited much confusion amongst the fans. Had The Black Album been retitled? Was The Black Album canceled? However, Rivers Cuomo confirmed in an interview that The Black Album was still in development and that Pacific Daydream consisted of songs that didn’t fit the sound of The Black Album. Personally, I was glad that Pacific Daydream was put out, as it allows for The Black Album to be even more experimental and dark. The fans were understandably upset as this meant that The Black Album was delayed further. In February of 2018, however, we received exciting news.

            On February 2nd, 2018, Rivers Cuomo announced that The Black Album was to be released on May 25th of the same year. While this seemed a bit quick, fans immediately got excited and waited expectantly for May 25th to arrive. The date soon drew near, and we started to question the release date. It was just a few days away and the band had not released a single official statement regarding the album. As expected, May 25th came and went without an album release in sight.

            The next music release from Weezer actually came fairly soon, with the band releasing covers of the Toto songs, “Rosanna,” and “Africa” on May 24th and 29th, respectively. These releases were influenced by memes, and fans constantly begging the band to release a cover of Toto’s hit song, “Africa.” These releases made it seem as though The Black Album was even further away than we may have anticipated.

            Then Rivers Cuomo took to Twitter to further mess with our expectations. Cuomo has been known to have somewhat of a bizarre social media presence and often tweets things sent to him by fans. Despite his reputation of being cryptic and strange on social media, fans still latched on to two dates tweeted out by Rivers Cuomo. He tweeted first, “June 1st sounds fantastic…for a release date.” Fans went crazy waiting for the day to arrive. As usual, June 1st came and went with no news from the band. The same thing happened later when Cuomo tweeting out, much less cryptically, “6/12/18 new music is coming…” At this point, fans had come to expect Rivers Cuomo flat out lying about release dates, so the anticipation was low on this date that came and went with no music.

Weezer’s next album is obviously very hotly anticipated, as is evidenced by the excitement from fans on the Weezer subreddit and on social media whenever a release date is teased. Personally, I cannot wait for The Black Album because a dark and experimental album from Weezer has the potential to be amazing. I just hope the next release date announcement is legitimate, and not a ploy by Mr. Rivers Cuomo to make his fans go crazy.