Hold These Threads: Weezer Revisit “Color” Albums on Vinyl Box, Plan Archival Set for Record Store Day

One of the most familiar visual tropes of Weezer’s discography – the self-titled albums known by the color of their covers – is being celebrated in an intriguing way with a new vinyl box the band is putting out this spring. The same month it reaches fans, an archival LP for Record Store Day will celebrate the history of the group’s origins leading up to that first of six “color” albums.
Coloring Book gathers those albums as originally issued over 25 years, from their 1994 debut Weezer (The Blue Album) to 2019’s Weezer (The Black Album); each are pressed on the same color of each cover and packaged inside of a hardcover, 72-page coloring book and marker set offering 72 illustrations by designer Alec Longstreth based on every song from the albums plus additional surprises. (The markers come in blue, green, red, white, teal and black, with the white one billed as a “magic” marker that can presumably uncover some promised surprises within the package. Frontman Rivers Cuomo, who conceived the package in 2023, has suggested that the band’s forthcoming album – their 20th official release, counting their most recent SZNZ EPs in 2022 – will yet again feature a colored cover.)
The color idea wasn’t codified for the release of the group’s acclaimed debut, featuring the alt-rock staples “Buddy Holly,” “Undone (The Sweater Song)” and “Say It Ain’t So.” It wasn’t until the initially disastrous reception of 1995 follow-up Pinkerton (today considered a modern masterpiece) that the group, after a brief hiatus and change in personnel (Cuomo, lead guitarist Brian Bell and drummer Patrick Wilson briefly welcomed new bassist Mikey Welsh into the fore) had the idea of taking things “back to basics.” This not only involved a change in Cuomo’s songwriting – abandoning the painfully honest lyricism of Pinkerton in favor of no-frills pop/rock like “Hash Pipe” and “Island in the Sun” – but the return of The Blue Album‘s producer, Ric Ocasek of The Cars.
Weezer added to a period of increasingly mainstream rock with their Red Album in 2008, a somewhat more experimental affair produced by Rick Rubin and Jacknife Lee; here, all four members of the band take lead vocals (including Welsh’s bass replacement Scott Shriner, still a member of the group today), and there was a brush with virality in the video for “Pork and Beans,” a compendium of the Internet’s early memes leading up to the explosion of YouTube several years earlier. Four albums later, 2016’s White Album was an intentional stab at back-to-basics, first-two-albums rock, to pleasant critical and fan reception. Its counterpart, the moodier Black Album (produced by Dave Sitek of TV on the Radio), was slated for release in the spring of 2019…but Weezer had a surprise up their sleeves first. An unusual campaign by a teenage fan urging the group to cover Toto’s “Africa” turned into a full album of mostly ’80s covers, from a-ha (“Take on Me”) to Tears for Fears (“Everybody Wants to Rule the World”). The straight take on “Africa” gave the band their first Billboard Hot 100 hit since 2005 (the year “Beverly Hills” became an unlikely Top 10), and The Teal Album became their ninth Top 10 album to date.
Coloring Book isn’t the only archival vinyl Weezer title due out this April, either. Even beyond the expansion of their debut album in 1994, there’s a wealth of early material around. One such gem was discovered by original bassist Matt Sharp: a multi-track copy of the group’s “Real Demo,” a November 1992 studio session that took place after the recording of the band’s mythic Kitchen Tape demo but nearly a year before tracking began on the full album proper. (The band still featured Cuomo, Sharp, Wilson and original second guitarist Jason Cropper, who departed during the recording of the debut.) Sharp and engineer Joe Chicarelli remixed each song multiple times for the new collection 1192, including several takes of “Say It Ain’t So,” “Undone (The Sweater Song),” “No One Else,” “The World Has Turned and Left Me Here” and “Surf Wax America” – making for an exciting vinyl rarity for hardcore fans to track down.
1192 will be an “RSD First” release limited to 3000 copies, available at indie stores on April 18. Coloring Book will start shipping about a week earlier and can be pre-ordered through the band’s official store or uDiscover Music at the links below.
Coloring Book (UMe, 2026) (Official Store / uDiscover Music)
LP 1: Weezer (The Blue Album) (originally released as DGC 24629, 1994)
- My Name is Jonas
- No One Else
- The World Has Turned and Left Me Here
- Buddy Holly
- Undone (The Sweater Song)
- Surf Wax America
- Say It Ain’t So
- In the Garage
- Holiday
- Only in Dreams
LP 2: Weezer (The Green Album) (originally released as Geffen 069 493 045-2, 2001)
- Don’t Let Go
- Photograph
- Hash Pipe
- Island in the Sun
- Crab
- Knock-Down Drag-Out
- Smile
- Simple Pages
- Glorious Day
- O Girlfriend
LP 3: Weezer (The Red Album) (originally released as DGC/Interscope B0011335-02, 2008)
- Troublemaker
- The Greatest Man That Ever Lived (Variations on a Shaker Hymn)
- Pork and Beans
- Heart Songs
- Everybody Get Dangerous
- Dreamin’
- Thought I Knew
- Cold Dark World
- Automatic
- The Angel and the One
LP 4: Weezer (The White Album) (originally released as Crush Music 554625-2, 2016)
- California Kids
- Wind in Our Sails
- Thank God for Girls
- (Girl We Got a) Good Thing
- Do You Wanna Get High?
- King of the World
- Summer Elaine and Drunk Dori
- L.A. Girlz
- Jacked Up
- Endless Bummer
LP 5: Weezer (The Teal Album) (originally released as Crush Music/Atlantic 587378-2, 2019)
- Africa
- Everybody Wants to Rule the World
- Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)
- Take on Me
- Happy Together
- Paranoid
- Mr. Blue Sky
- No Scrubs
- Billie Jean
- Stand by Me
LP 6: Weezer (The Black Album) (originally released as Crush Music/Atlantic 585330-2, 2019)
- Can’t Knock the Hustle
- Zombie Bastards
- High As a Kite
- Living in L.A.
- Piece of Cake
- I’m Just Being Honest
- Too Many Thoughts in My Head
- The Prince Who Wanted Everything
- Byzantine
- California Snow
1192 (Ernest Jenning Record Co., 2026)
Side A
- No One Else (Take 1 – 1192 Mix)
- Say It Ain’t So (Take 2 – 1192 Mix)
- Undone (The Sweater Song) (1192 Acoustic Mix)
- The World Has Turned and Left Me Here (1192 Mix)
- Surf Wax America (1192 Mix)
Side B
- Say It Ain’t So (1192 Vocal and Guitar Mix)
- The World Has Turned and Left Me Here (1192 Vocal and Guitar Mix)
- Undone (The Sweater Song) (1192 Band Mix)
- No One Else (Take 2 – 1192 Mix)
- Say It Ain’t So (Take 1 – 1192 Mix)





