Every last Sunday of the month, composer, educator and community organizer, Mafer Bandola hosts workshops at Barbés, a popular bar in Brooklyn. In these didactic shows called Pipiris Nights, she teaches attendees about the instruments, music, and dance of joropo —  a style from the grassy plains of Venezuela. 

Attendees range from curious visitors to fellow Venezuelans, many of whom are recent immigrants, longing to reconnect with their roots. At Bandola's workshop, those Venezuelans often find themselves in tears while reminiscing over the country they left behind and watching their American children learn about their heritage. 

In the past year, the number of Venezuelans living in New York has increased exponentially as part of a larger migrant crisis. In December 2023, the New York Times reported that more than 136,000 migrants have arrived in New York since the spring of 2022. Many of these migrants are from Venezuela. The NYT describes this movement as something which could lead to the first "Little Caracas" in the U.S. 

Conditions in Venezuela — including a lack of food, medicine and essential services, increased crime and political unrest — have led many musicians to leave their country in search of better opportunities and quality of life. More than 7.3 million Venezuelans have left the country since 2014, and as of 2023 the exodus is considered the largest displacement crisis in the world. This migration is creating more than a social and economic impact; Venezuelan migrant musicians are leaving aural trails wherever they settle.

Prior to the current crisis, the power and passion of Venezuelan music caught the attention of archivists for the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage in 2008. Patricia Abdelnour, then the Cultural Attaché to the Venezuelan Embassy, traveled to Venezuela with Smithsonian Folkways Recordings to explore the musical landscape of her home country. Abdelnour’s trip and work led to the recording of three albums and concerts in the U.S. for Venezuelan musicians who had never even traveled outside of Venezuela.

Y Que Viva Venezuela is one of these albums, performed by the group Maestros del Joropo which includes Alfonso Moreno, Roberto Koch, Aquiles Báez and José Martínez. In the above video, they perform alongside Venezuelan violinist, director, and member of the Music Council of UNESCO Venezuela Eddy Marcano. Marcano was recognized by the Latin GRAMMYs in 2010 for his contribution to Tesoros de la música Venezolana - Llanos.

Inside New York's "Little Caracas" music scene

Bandola's first experience in the U.S. as a musician was in 2014, when she was accepted into a month-long musical residency called  One Beat. To fill out the application, she "put each question through Google translate" because she didn’t know any English at the time, she says in Spanish via Zoom. At One Beat, Bandola met the members of LADAMA. 

Bandola is a pioneer in musica llanera, as the first woman bandolista (in some regions women accompanied musica llanera with dance and song, however, the playing was left to the working cowboys). Bandola is also the only bandolista to play an electric bandola, merging traditional and modern elements with LADAMA. 

There are plenty of styles within musica llanera, however, the most popular is Joropo. One that is accompanied by dance in festive settings. The llano work songs are sung to keep the cattle calm while they are being milked at dawn. There is an innate celebration and honoring of nature in musica llanera. The present-day style comes from a fusion of Indigenous, African, and Spanish influences, when colonization brought the Spanish style of fandango to Venezuela. LADAMA has incorporated these themes and sounds into their music by way of Bandola’s electric bandola stylings.

LADAMA toured Latin America in 2016 and 2017. During this time, Bandola endured many obstacles when traveling between countries. It was difficult for her to leave and enter Venezuela and the military at the Venezuelan airport would try to take away her instrument. 

"The ideal life for me would be to live in Venezuela and only leave to travel and tour with my music," she tells GRAMMY.com. "I never thought I’d live outside of my country, only travel." 

This is a shared experience for many Venezuelan musicians who made the difficult decision to leave. In a theater production in Miami called "Papá Cuatro," Mafer shares her life and immigration story alongside Venezuelan Latin GRAMMY winner Miguel Siso and Latin GRAMMY nominee Mariaca Semprún.

After the LADAMA tour concluded, Bandola "moved from country to country, because Venezuela wasn’t an option." After some time living in Canada during the pandemic, her manager successfully expedited the process to receive an artist visa and move to the United States permanently. 

The story of how she chose the venue for her joropo workshops was serendipitous and spiritual even. When she approached Oliver Conan, the French owner of Barbés, he shared that he had spent 6 months traveling and living in Venezuela. He had been inspired so much by the music and the culture of los llanos that he bought himself a cuatro (a traditional Venezuelan instrument with four strings) and learned how to play. He even has a portrait of a Venezuelan saint hung above the bar, Dr. Jose Gregorio Hernandez.

The first Pipiris Night took place in March 2022 and is still going strong.

Afro-Venezuelan tambores meet in New York City

Mafer Bandola isn't the only Venezuelan artist creating community in New York. Elsewhere in the city, Willie Quintana is making a name for himself in the sphere of Afro-Venezuelan tambores. Born in Valencia and raised in Barinas, Venezuela, Willie came from a musical family. 

In 2015, the lack of resources in Venezuela forced Quintana and his wife to move to the United States with their son. With him he brought a project that he hadn’t had the chance to develop in Venezuela;   Afro-Venezuelan drumming collective Tambor y Caña was born in NYC in 2017. 

Quintana shares that some new participants of Tambor y Caña recently arrived in the U.S.  — a few risking their lives crossing the southern border. He says these young men from small rural areas have the true authentic cadence of Afro-Venezuelan drumming. "They are insanely talented!" he shared in Spanish in a Zoom interview.

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To bring traditional Venezuelan instruments into the U.S., Quintana resorted to having friends bring a few instruments at a time when they traveled between the two countries. These drums — the cumaco, the mina, the curbata, the culo e’ puya, the long drum, and the pipa corta — are quite fragile and difficult to travel with in bulk.

Tambor y Caña has since performed at impressive venues throughout New York City, including the Lincoln Center, Barclays Center, Bronx Music House, and NYC City Hall. Inspired by the work Tambor y Caña was doing, a group of women became interested in learning Afro-Venezuelan drums. Through Quintana's drumming school (Escuela de Tambor Afrovenezolano y Percusión Afrolatina), TamborEllas was born.

Much like Bandola, TamborEllas are doing important work in Afro-Venezuelan musical tradition as it is generally dominated by men. 

Tambor y Caña haven’t recorded music yet, instead focusing on leading workshops throughout New York City schools both for children and adults. Quintana has also worked with Venezuelan classical maestro Samuel Marchán, leading workshops for youth in the East River Music Project. 

A burgeoning Venezuela 2.0 in Miami

Miami is also a hub for Venezuelan artists — so much so that Mafer Bandola felt nervous about finding a community in New York because so many Venezuelan musicians had left NYC for the south Florida city. 

The largest enclave of Venezuelan immigrants is in south Florida, the city of Doral (also known as Doralzuela), and there is increasing demand for Venezuelan performers to share their work in the area. 

Nostalgia for the country and people he left behind is a recurring theme in the music of now Miami-based Latin GRAMMY-nominated singer Danny Ocean. The lyrics of "Caracas en el 2000," a track with Miami-based Venezuelan artist ELENA ROSE and Jerry Di, reminisce about the youthful joy of walking along the streets of the capital city eating traditional Venezuelan foods with friends. Ocean's fond memories resonated with Venezuelan immigrants around the world, who share the sentiment of wanting to return soon. In "Caracas en el 2000" he sings, "quiero volver, quiero volver, cuándo?" (I want to return, but when?)

Simón Grossmann, often called the "Latin Jack Johnson," started performing while he was a summer camp counselor. Encouraged by colleagues and campers, Grossman recorded his first album, Ciclo, in 2017. Today it has over 7 million streams. 

The album’s producer, Venezuelan GRAMMY nominated José Luis Pardo has also worked with DJ Afro, Rawayana, Camila Luna, and Los Amigos Invisibles. 

Grossmann released  Mujer Eléctrica in 2018 and Bahia Margarita three years later; the latter is considered to be his best work to date. In an interview with NPR, Grossmann said the album was inspired by the Venezuelan island of Margarita where he spent many childhood summers. Grossman recalled those memories during the quarantine lockdown as a form of escape and wondered "what would my adult self be doing in that place right now?"

Also known for his skillful lyricism, Migguel Anggelo is a dancer, actor, and musician who has moved away from traditional Venezuelan styles. When he was trying to get projects off the ground in Miami, he was told his experimental style was "not commercial enough" and too "poetic" for the Miami music scene. Fittingly, he even speaks in metaphors. 

"I am a Venezuelan tree, an Araguaney, the national tree from Venezuela. I am beautiful and have huge branches," Anggelo says, describing himself. "I can offer you my shade, my music. I can comfort you…I came here to give you music and shade from the sun and the rain."

On "Inmigrantes" Anggelo sings in Spanish, "my only frontier is my mother’s womb." He shares that he was ecstatic and surprised when he toured in Russia and audiences sang along to the English and Spanish lyrics. Migguel Anggelo has two albums, Dónde Estará Matisse and La Casa Azul, and he is currently working on his third album. He has completed residencies at the Lincoln Center, Miami Light Project, The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, and BRIC (Brooklyn) and hopes to continue expanding his repertoire. 

As an openly gay man from a relatively machista culture, Migguel Anggelo has inspired people to come out to their families through his performances. Migguel Anggelo wants American audiences to see that immigrants are not bad, as some American pundits like to say. 

San Juan USA brings a Venezuelan drumming festival to Miami

Approximately 100,000 people were kidnapped from West Africa and enslaved in Venezuelan territories between 1576 and 1810. Along Venezuela's coast and bordering states, their descendants now celebrate the festival of San Juan, in which they honor and worship St. John the Baptist. The cornerstone of this June event is the drumming tradition, during which traditional maraca accompanies the beat of the Afro-Venezuelan drums. The festive cycle includes many musical and dance rituals grounded in mythical and symbolic traditions which have been taught for the past 400 years. 

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San Juan USA, which includes Grace Salamanca, Marcos Espinoza, and Pedro Sarabia, continues this tradition with an annual festival at the Miami Beach Bandshell. In February, San Juan USA led a dance and drumming workshop as part of a Black History Month celebration. Children gathered around the traditional drums with bright smiles and insatiable curiosity as the musicians showed them how to play the instruments. San Juan USA’s participation in such community events, underscores the importance Venezuelan artists place on educating people about the culture and musical tradition of their country.

Local Venezuelan artists are performing innovative sets at new venues, such as ZeyZey in Miami's Little River neighborhood. In February, Venezuelan DJ Venezonix and tambores group San Juan USA performed a combination of traditional Afro-Venezuelan styles with EDM and house beats. The crowd, many of whom were Venezuelan, took advantage of the venue’s large terrace to dance the traditional tambores style. The event successfully brought a modern take of traditional Venezuelan music to an audience of Venezuelan immigrants and visitors, as well as locals and tourists of other cultures. 

Luis "Papo'' Marquez — Cuban singer, composer, and producer and president of Miami recording studio PapoMusic — lived in Venezuela for many years, and collaborated with local artists. He attributes a large part of his musical formation to the time he spent working with musicians in Venezuela. "I quickly realized that Venezuelan musicians were very versatile," Marquez says via WhatsApp. 

This openness and versatility allows its musicians to adapt to many genres. Venezuela has always been receptive to international music, Marquez continues, adding that the Venezuleans he knows will learn any style of music — including pop, rock, flamenco, salsa, and jazz. 

"Venezuelans in general are very talented and hard-working people," he says in Spanish. It’s easy for them to enter any scene, specifically the American music scene, due to their outstanding preparedness. 

Marquez refers to himself as Cuban Venezuelan due to the influence the country had on his career, and their shared histories. He is proud of the impact this community of creative, well-rounded, and determined musicians have made here in the states. The success, talent and prolific nature of Venezuelan musicians is proof that, while you can take the artist out of Venezuela, but you cannot take the love and pride with which they sing and play.  

Meet The Gen Z Women Claiming Space In The Regional Mexican Music Movement

Fans likely know Danny Ocean best for "Me Rehúso" — his global megahit from 2017 — but the Venezuelan singer/songwriter digs into deeper and more introspective territory with his newer material, including "Fuera Del Mercado."

In this episode of Press Play at Home, watch Ocean's intimate onstage performance of the song. Though the stage is decked out for a full concert — featuring a band, lighting and even a bodyguard standing by the pit — there's no one in the audience. The empty venue makes for a rendition of the song that's introspective, and even eerie, despite its danceable beat.

"Fuera Del Mercado" translates to "Off the Market" in English. But as Ocean explained to La Mezcla, it's unfortunately not about himself going off the market — instead, it's a bittersweet goodbye to an ex.

"The story of when someone finds out that a person they like very much is going to get married, and also in the end you realize that the happiness of the other person is what is most valuable, and also your happiness," Ocean wrote.

That yearning, regret and optimism all come through in the singer/songwriter's performance, amplified by his expressive vocal delivery. The complex narratives behind "Fuera Del Mercado" are representative of what Ocean set out to do when he was making his second full-length album, @dannocean. 

"The process of this album has been love and hate," he told Rolling Stone, adding that he hopes fans will see a "darker Danny" in the results. "It took me a while to figure out what I wanted to say, the stories I wanted to write, visually how I wanted to express myself."

"Fuera Del Mercado" is one of 16 songs on @dannocean, which is available on all streaming platforms now. Enjoy the video above, and check back to GRAMMY.com for more episodes of Press Play at Home.

10 Must-Hear Albums In July 2022: Beyoncé, J-Hope, Burna Boy, Lizzo & More

By 2001, alt-rock heroes Incubus were on the verge of something big. Their third album, 1999's Make Yourself, was a crossover hit, thanks to singles "Stellar," "Pardon Me" and "Drive," all of which were on constant rotation on alt-rock radio and MTV. To capitalize on the momentum and record a follow-up, the band rented a beachside mansion on Morning View Drive in Malibu instead of recording in a traditional studio.

For a little over four weeks, the band lived together in that beachside mansion, working on songs day and night, creating what would become their best-selling record, 2001's Morning View. As frontman Brandon Boyd remembers, the carefree setup helped Incubus create without any pressure to match Make Yourself: "For whatever reason, I never felt like we had to come up with something better or else it'd all be over. It was just fun and exciting."

The result was an album that moved them further away from the heavy nu-metal sound of their earlier records and leaning into their new mainstream appeal. Morning View debuted on the Billboard 200 at No. 2, kickstarting a trend that would continue with each of the band's preceding albums landing in the top 5 on the all-genre albums chart. By evolving their sound on Morning View, Incubus found connection with a wider audience and changed the trajectory of the band.

Twenty-three years after Morning View was originally released, Incubus are commemorating the album with a U.S. tour and a re-recorded version titled Morning View XXIII, out now. While bands tend to celebrate anniversaries with deluxe reissues and remasters, Incubus uniquely decided to rerecord the album in order to capture these songs as they are now — that is, fully evolved and gracefully aged.

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Recorded in the same mansion on Morning View Drive in Malibu with Boyd on vocals, Michael Einziger on guitars, Jose Pasillas on drums, Chris Kilmore on turntables and keys, and newbie Nicole Row on bass, Morning View XXIII sees the band stepping back into the snapshot of an album and paying homage their most successful recordings. These are not remixes or carbon copies; these recordings are a representation of wizened alt-rock veterans Incubus are now. As a result, it has rejuvenated the band: "There's this feeling of, 'Oh wow, there's still a lot of life in this,'" Boyd adds.

Mostly, Morning View XIII remains faithful to the original, with subtle differences throughout. Others you'll notice, like the extended swelling intro in album stand-out "Nice to Know You," or the heavy riff return in "Circles." Overall, the band sounds as youthful as they ever have, excited to pay respect to an album that shaped both them and their fans.

Ahead of XXIII's release, GRAMMY.com caught up with Boyd and Einziger over Zoom to talk more about the project, the album anniversary, and tapping into that exuberant energy to pave the way forward into the band's next era.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

First of all, welcome back to the U.S., I know you've been out of the country for a while. And you guys just played "Kimmel" and sounded fantastic. What's it like being Incubus in 2024?

Brandon Boyd: It's a trip. There's this feeling that we've been… I don't know if the right word is reinvigorated… I think it's probably a number of factors that we have to include. But the one that feels the most appropriate to mention is the fact that Nicole Row joined our band. It started as her filling in for Ben Kenny on Ben's suggestion, and fast forward to a few months later and she's become an actual member of the band.

It's just been so much fun getting to know her, but also getting to know her through the lens of being on stage together and traveling and playing shows all over the world. She's a phenomenal player, and she's a wonderful presence and personality. And it seems like our longtime listeners have fully accepted her and welcomed her into the fold with open arms.

Mike Einziger: I couldn't agree more. It's kind of a combination of things for me, but definitely Nicole. Nicole's presence has reinvigorated us in a bunch of different ways. She's a bit younger than us…

Boyd: Just a bit. [Laughs.]

Einziger: …And super talented, fun to play with, and fun to be around. That's having a really great effect on all of us as a collective. But also, as you mentioned, we just got back from five weeks touring in Asia, Australia and New Zealand — these are parts of the world we haven't been to in quite some time, not since the pandemic. And you know, I'm 47 now, and it's pretty crazy to be this age and traveling that far away from our country and city of origin to be playing in front of tens of thousands of people who care about our music.

It's like, the older I get, the more I can't believe and am astonished and appreciative and humbled by the level of enthusiasm for this music that we wrote so long ago. It's just a feeling of appreciation and humility to be in this position to now consider writing new music and keeping the dream alive, as it were.

It sounds like you've tapped into this youthful energy. That's sort of the vibe I've been getting with Morning View XXIII. When you were rerecording this record, did you feel like you wanted to reach back to the kids you were 23 years ago when you originally recorded?

Einziger: It's really interesting because, to be totally honest, I wasn't totally enthused about the idea in the beginning. When we first started talking about it, it kinda seemed like, "Why would we do this?" But we ended up playing Morning View at the Hollywood Bowl here in Los Angeles, and when we played that music in front of people, it felt really different than I imagined it would.

That experience shaped my perspective on the idea of rerecording the music. In a strange way, it was a new experience, but it also [felt] like visiting really old friends. It was just fun. That's really the only way to describe it.

It was so much fun rerecording those songs, being conscious of how we were changing certain aspects but also not really caring at the same time. This is our music. We can do whatever the f— we want with it. People can like or not like it. Whatever. We're gonna have a good time putting this together. To me, it was all about that experience of just enjoying it and reliving that music, and also making it new at the same time.

Boyd: I agree with you 100 percent, Mike. There's one small factor from a selfish point of view that I feel compelled to mention: the songs from Morning View were getting harder and harder for me to perform live over the last 10 years. Part of it was because of the process of aging. We wrote these songs when we were in our 20s, and now we're all in our late 40s trying to perform them [Laughs].

And then on a boring physiological human level, I had broken my nose twice as a kid and I learned to sing through one nostril. My other nostril I could never breathe through. I made the decision to have my septum repaired in late 2019. I knew it was gonna take some time for my face to heal completely. The global pandemic forced us to stay home, and I got this really interesting period of time to let my surgery heal and to learn how to breathe and sing out of two nostrils.

By the time we got to the rerecording of this record and I started doing my vocals, I had access to my voice again for the first time in what felt like over 10 years. And so now we're performing these songs again, and it's like somebody gave me back this breath capacity and this space on the inside of my face to access these things. It feels very different now, and I'm feeling invigorated again for sure.

Einziger: So much of musical performance is not thinking about what you're doing. It's more about expressing yourself and not worrying about if what you're playing is hurting you.

Boyd: The music is kind of spilling out of us again like it did when we were in our 20s.

Einziger: We'll just continue to make it harder for ourselves when we get even older, because we constantly are like, "Wow, we wrote all this music that is extra hard for a 40-something to play," and now we'll write music that is extra hard for 60 somethings to play and that'll be challenging in the future… but we'll be lucky if we get there. [Laughs.]

It's so interesting to hear how these songs have grown over the years. Is this something you wanted to capture with Morning View XXIII? What are your thoughts on how these songs have evolved and what time has done for your band?

Einziger: It's interesting because we didn't go into the recording process of rerecording Morning View with this intention that we were going to make new versions of the songs and, like, reimagine them so much as we went in there and just played them how we play them now. There were some things that we changed around a little bit, but it became obvious that there are certain parts of the songs that we play now that are just different than when we were recording them [23 years ago]. Sometimes we had to go back to the original recording and be like, "Oh wow, we actually don't play it like that."

Were there things you wanted to do differently this time around that you didn't or couldn't do in 2001?

Einziger: No, just there were parts that we play now — that I play now, for example — that Brandon would point out to me and he'd be like, "I don't think you play it like that on the recording," and I'd be like, "Of course I did! That's ridiculous. What are you talking about?"

Then we'd go back and listen to it and I'd be like, "Oh yeah, I actually did play it that way." We weren't overly concerned about that. We weren't trying to do this verbatim recitation of what we had done in the past. If we're playing it this way now, that's how we're gonna record it. And we did. It was fun.

So you didn't worry about "tampering" with the songs?

Einziger: Nah, like who f—ing cares! People will say "I wish they didn't change it" and it's like, we didn't change anything. We just made a different recording, but the original version will never go away. It will always be there, unless some cataclysmic event happens and wipes out all humanity. Then we have a bigger problem.

I remember reading something about how you wanted to separate yourselves from the nu-metal scene in 2001. Did you feel a sort of pressure to stand out when you were originally writing for Morning View? Do you care about that anymore?

Einziger: No. That s— makes me laugh when I think about it now. There was all this dumb, macho energy going on. We didn't want to be associated with that energy, but it's not really up to us to decide that anyway. We're expressing ourselves, we're making the music that we make and it's kind of up to everyone else to figure out.

But we ended up touring with a lot of those bands. We spent the whole early part of our career playing the Ozzfests and touring with bands like the Deftones — who I love — and System of a Down, Korn, and it just so happened that we had a lot of audiences in common. And I'm super grateful for that. It was an interesting musical time, and we made a lot of great friends, and we found an audience that we really connected with.

Boyd: I think the part about it that bothered me was more the fact that we didn't have a say in how our band was categorized. One of the things that's so attractive about being in the band — and I felt the same way when we were younger — is that, for better or worse, what we're presenting is coming directly from us. We're not a product of a team of producers and songwriters, which you see is sort of endemic to the music industry.

There's a lot of popular music that comes from think tanks. We're five people that go into a room, put our heads together, and what you hear is the result of that day. And there's something really cool about that. There's true self-authorship. And so when there were labels that were put onto us and associations with other bands, it felt like some of that self-authorship was being taken away.

It would be different if the labels were things that I associated more with. But when I was seeing sort of the terminology and labels that were being used to describe our band, I was like, "What the f—, that's not what we're doing! Ew!" It just felt icky to me.

But I was also — as we all are in our late teens, early 20s — kind of in a self-righteous period of time in my life, so it's very possible I was taking myself and our band a little too seriously. I feel a deep appreciation that anybody listened to what we did in any capacity. Associations be damned.

It doesn't really matter at the end of the day. If people are being exposed to it, then choosing to like it and make it a part of their experience, it doesn't f—ing matter what it's called, you know?

And the music speaks for itself.

Boyd: At the end of the day, yes.

Einziger: I think how I felt about this has evolved over the years. There's a handful of bands that we came up alongside, like Deftones, System of a Down, and Korn — including ourselves — we all somehow found a way to really connect with an audience. All of us are still making music. There's still a vibrant scene.

Why is Morning View special to you? Why do all of this for this particular album?

Boyd: When we were writing and recording this record [in 2001], our band caught a gust of momentum for what felt [like] the first time, where we were collectively like, "Woah, we get to write music as our job." And there was something really exciting and humbling and fun about that.

When we were writing Morning View, our song "Drive" from the record before it [Make Yourself] was climbing the charts really fast and they were playing it on MTV and all over the radio. To even have a whiff of that creative and career momentum at the same time is a real blessing, and I'm so grateful that we got to experience that.

When Morning View came out, the momentum just exploded. So this album means a lot to this band, not only from a career point of view but also just from the way it shot us into a trajectory. It was the record that sent us off into space, so to speak.

Einziger: Yeah, it was a heavy experience for everybody. I had this idea that I didn't want us to make what became Morning View in a recording studio. I wanted us to do it in a house, in a place that wasn't designed to make music. I loved the idea of taking a space that wasn't intended for that purpose and commandeering it into a space where we made music.

I got a lot of push back from our record label and our manager at the time. Nobody wanted us to do that. Nobody thought it was a good idea. It was gonna cost a lot of money to do it and the quickest, safest route from point A to point B was where everyone else wanted us to go. But I was very, very adamant that we not do it that way, and we somehow wrangled enough support to get the funding and find the right place to do it, which was that Morning View house.

Having that confidence and vision to be able to say, "No, f— you, this is how we're going to do it," and then have it be super successful, that was a big lesson to me and for all of us that we need to follow our vision. For better or worse, whatever risk it's going to be, that's how great s— happens. We just dove into it full on and fulfilled that vision.

It felt awesome to have that vision and have the record be successful. It was a fun experience, and I'm just really glad that we did it. It was life-changing for all of us.

Why Weezer's 'The Blue Album' Is One Of The Most Influential '90s Indie Pop Debuts

We can thank Kurt Cobain and Tower Records for one of the most enduring debut albums of all time. 

Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo was working at a Los Angeles Tower Records in 1991 when the store began to blare Nirvana’s "Sliver." His ears perked up, inspired by Cobain’s music and lyrics.

"It’s like, 'Oh, my God. This is so beautiful to me. And I identify with it so much.' Hearing him sing about Mom and Dad and Grandpa Joe, these personal family issues, in a really heartbreaking kind of innocent, childlike way, over these straightforward chords in a major key," Cuomo told Rolling Stone.

Fast forward to May 10, 1994, and Weezer —originally a nickname Cuomo took on due to his asthma-induced wheezing — debuted an album brimming with thoughtful themes, chunky riffs, sublime solos and a song that would end up as a game-changing music video directed by Spike Jonze. 

Cuomo cut his headbanger hair — he thought metal would be his future — and adorned thick glasses reminiscent of Cobain. Along for the ride came drummer Patrick Wilson, guitarist Brian Bell and bassist Matt Sharp. The cover art for The Blue Album featuring the foursome simply standing and staring at the camera evoked a feeling of awkward geekiness that would eventually lead to the album’s designation as being the harbinger of nerd rock and its many acolytes.

From the time of its release and through to today, The Blue Album reverberated with both music fans and indie rock bands. It felt like a lovechild between the Beach Boys' melodies and the Pixies’ distortion-friendly rhythms. It was certified platinum in January 1995, and has since gone three times multi-platinum in the U.S. Rolling Stone readers ranked the album the 21st greatest of all time. 

In honor of an album that arguably has a banger for every track, here’s a deep dive into what makes The Blue Album such an iconic indie pop record, and how its impact on modern rock is still being felt today.

It Has More Hooks Than A Walk-In Closet

Refreshingly original pop-rock wasn’t sprouting up in the mid-1990s, when Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Smashing Pumpkins dominated the radio waves. Enter The Blue Album with songs, such as "Say It Ain’t So," boasting catchy hooks so infectious they became earworm fodder.

It’s not just the big singles blasting addictive hooks. "Surf Wax America" lets Weezer fans ply their falsetto skills when they try to reach the end note in, "You take your car to work/I’ll take my board/and when you’re out of fuel/I’m still afloat."

Tokyo Police Club's Graham Wright said in 2019: "That [album] has such an unfair amount of hooks packed into it. Like, every song has like 5 to 10 hooks that are good enough to easily sustain an entire song in their own. It feels like they hogged everything."

TPC toured with Weezer in 2008.

…And Its Lyrics Were More Than Just Playful

Cobain wrote about drugs, Metallica’s lyrics skewed dark, and some fans couldn’t even make out what Eddie Vedder was crooning into the mic. But Cuomo’s lyrics had that everyman quality fans could find relatable. 

Album opener "My Name is Jonas" speaks of a common crisis Cuomo was inspired to put to paper: Cuomo’s brother was dealing with insurance challenges after enduring a serious car crash. Knowing Cuomo’s MO, the song's lyrics resonate more deeply: "Tell me what to do/Now the tank is dry/Now this wheel is flat."

On "Say It Ain’t So" — the most-streamed song from the album on Spotify — Weezer manages an eternal hookiness with a heavy dose of reality. Over a reggae-influenced beat with guitar upstrokes, the song offers a potent look at Cuomo’s past. It tells the story of his estranged relationship with his alcoholic father ("Somebody's Heine/Is crowding my icebox") and how Rivers Sr. eventually left the family, got sober and became a preacher ("You've cleaned up, found Jesus/Things are good, or so I hear").

The Blue Album Had A Singular Look

If there is any moment to showcase how Weezer set itself apart from other rock bands at the time, look no further than the music video to one of the album’s blazing hits. "Buddy Holly" might have been a reference to the close-cropped hair and wide-rim glasses both Holly and Cuomo wore, but the video is a taste of the band’s nostalgia-heavy, pop culture-referencing personality that other bands would later emulate.

Directed by Spike Jonze (who was also responsible for the Beastie Boys' astounding "Sabotage" video,) "Buddy Holly" featured Weezer playing in 1950s garb as they interacted with characters from the show "Happy Days." The video was a marvel of editing and jokiness at the time: Mary Tyler Moore gets a shout-out; there’s something so deeply satisfying seeing the Fonz dance to Weezer verses and fuzz guitars.

"Buddy Holly" was an early example of Weezer's unique and deeply referential aesthetic; their free-spirited, random and weird viewpoint would appear in videos throughout their run.  In "Undone (The Sweater Song)," a parade of canines runaround the band as they exuberantly play the hit song, with drummer Patrick Wilson shaking booty behind the kit.

Post- Blue, the Muppets danced and sang along with the band in the hilarious "Keep Fishin’," while sumo wrestlers battled it out between clips of the band rocking out to "Hash Pipe."

It Delivered Memorable And Inspiring Intros 

Producer Ric Ocasek ensured that there were no wasted moments in The Blue Album. That includes the intros, which can feature some of the best opening licks to ever grace a Weezer track (as on "Holiday") or flirt with a genre–rock folk– that quickly switches to another (see "My Name is Jonas").

But a true-stand out intro, if only for its experimental personality, comes from "Undone (The Sweater Song)," which opens with a circular riff stemming from guitar picking. Then comes a music-less intro with a couple guys chatting — courtesy of bassist Sharp and friend of the band Karl Koch — that isn’t as meaningful as the song’s more maudlin theme. It may inspire fans to see the song as a fun and silly tune instead of what Cuomo intended: an anthem of the underdog.

That intro is mirrored in other pop-rock tracks of that era, such as Nada Surf’s "Popular" which begins with over a minute of spoken word before the verses.

The spoken intro to "Undone" is a reminder that Weezer never likes taking itself too seriously. They enjoy breaking conventional rules of what a song, or first few bars, should sound like for their audience, and they revel in throwing us curveballs as a way to say, "Hey, we’re a rock band, but we’re not your Dad’s rock band." 

They Aren’t Afraid To Move Away From Traditional Indie Pop

"We're experimenting, trying to come up with the best music we possibly can, so our motivation is pure. We're not just trying to cash in," Cuomo told Guitar World in 2002, reflecting his anti-frontman persona with an honest take of Weezer’s standing in the rock world. That "best music" is shining on The Blue Album but also their inventiveness, which saw them extend the usual track length on "Only in Dreams" from the usual three minutes to almost eight minutes. 

Moving away from the head-boppin choruses of "Buddy Holly" and "Surf Wax America", the final track on the album plays with rhythms and unadorned bass lines reminiscent of early Phish. It careens from dreamy and meandering to chewy distortion and crashing cymbals, and ends with four minutes of instrumental jamming. 

Wavves bassist Stephen Pope took to "Only in Dreams" right away. "[It] stands out to me, as a not-very-technically-skilled bass player, because of how memorable the bassline is even though it’s so simple. It’s extremely Kim Deal-esque, and I attribute a lot of my playing style to Kim Deal and Matt Sharp," he told Consequence of Sound. 

Bands Love Covering The Blue Album

Everyone loves to try their hand at belting out Weezer songs, especially those from The Blue Album. One of the more notable covers is the pitch-perfectly sung "My Name is Jonas" from Taking Back Sunday, whose own tunes have Weezer-esque personalities. 

Foster the People covered "Say It Ain’t So" in 2011, Relient K cleaned up the distortion for their version of "Surf Wax America," and Mac DeMarco delivered a throaty take on "Undone (The Sweater Song)" where he adlibbed the tune’s spoken word bits. 

And if there’s any sign of the album’s wide-ranging influence, the cast of "Succession" recorded a raucous rendition of "Say It Ain’t So."

The Blue Album Is So Iconic That Weezer Is Touring It Globally

From Atlanta to London to Vancouver, Weezer’s 2024 tour schedule is solely focused on playing The Blue Album from start to finish. Titled Voyage to the Blue Planet and featuring openers the Flaming Lips, the Smashing Pumpkins and Dinosaur Jr., the tour will be a retrospective of the killer tracks that cemented Weezer as pioneers of nerd-rock and a whimsical sorely needed during the super-serious era of grunge.

As much as Weezer fans also adore the emo classic Pinkerton and admire the ambition of the four-album box set of SZNS of 2021, The Blue Album remains a perfect debut record and one that transcends any age demo. A 50-year-old rock fan and a 25-year-old TikTok influencer will both be front row centre at the tour this year, and expect them to be mouthing the lyrics to "Buddy Holly" while playing the meanest air guitar.

8 Ways 'Musicology' Returned Prince To His Glory Days

Grief is 360°, and so are the best albums written about it.

Sorrow-weighted breakthroughs of the past decade, like Sun Kil Moon's Benji and Mount Eerie's A Crow Looked at Me, both grabbed you by the collar and read between the lines. Retro-tinted rockers Shannon and the Clams' new album, The Moon is in the Wrong Place, is no exception.

Out May 10, the band's seventh LP deals with a tragedy in leader Shannon Shaw's life: the loss of her fiancé, Joe Haener, in a freak car accident outside his Aurora, Oregon, family farm. As Shaw picked up the pieces, the songs poured forth — and as bruised as they are, that loss opened vistas of clarity and range in their gritty, mid-century-rock sound.

Take the ascendant highlight "Bean Fields," where Shaw maps Haener's spirit onto the soil he loved. "Gather up, sisters, cousins, and brothers/ Friends, Nan, and Delbert too/ Let's go be where the bugs sing/ And where the pole beans bloom/ We love this land 'cause it's you."

Shaw was concerned about "Bean Fields" being a single. "It's so peppy and joyous and celebratory," she tells GRAMMY.com, with Clams guitarist and vocalist Cody Blanchard in an adjacent Zoom window. "I was afraid of that being a confusing message for people without knowing the rest of the album."

In the end, they made the right call; sometimes harrowing losses, and their attendant life changes, can carry exhilarating headwinds. In short, it's not all doldrums.

And that's why that song — as well as other lush, blooming highlights like "Real or Magic" and "Life is Unfair" — feel right at home on an album borne of sorrow. Read on for an interview with Shaw and Blanchard about the making of the Dan Auerbach-produced album.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

How's the press cycle been, dealing with something this intensely personal?

Shannon Shaw: It's been good. I feel like everyone I've spoken to has been really super respectful and prepared. I think [PR firm] The Oriel did a good job at making sure people that have no idea what this album's about aren't interviewing me. So, that's been a good thing.

It would be weird to talk about anything that doesn't involve grief and loss really, because that's what the album is about. But it's been good. Definitely hard for me, but good.

For a long time after I lost a parent, I resented when people would drag me back into suffering. People would be like, "I'm so sorry," and I'd be like, "I'm chillin', but thank you."

Shaw: Oh, yeah. People have some really bad timing. I think most people are coming from a good place, but yeah, that is weird when fans will try to engage with me about it at really bad times. 

When I'm working and trying to be on, that's when I do not want to go deep. It's hard for me to not go deep, so to just be really surface and thank people for their condolences — I don't want to be surface with it at all. I also do appreciate people trying to be kind, but yeah, there's timing.

What really annoys me is when people want to pretend like it didn't happen. That doesn't happen with any press. More like people purposefully skirting talking about Joe or this experience, or trying to get me to not go there or something. And I know that's also because none of us are trained to talk about grief. It's just so not a part of our culture.

I'm a lot more comfortable really talking about it than pretending my life has been just really f—ing great for the last year and a half. And I love talking about Joe.

Obviously, this traumatic loss was an impetus to make The Moon is in the Wrong Place. But it's not a one-dimensional record, as you're not a one-dimensional person. How did this music start flowing, in any regard?

Shaw: I mean, music started coming to me right away, very soon after [Joe] passed away. And the way that looks is: I'll have either a phrase repeating in my head or a melody, and so I just start singing those little pieces into the recorder on my phone. So I'll have a ton of weird little vocal chunks to sort through later. "Bean Fields" came to me really soon after. Lots of them, really.

"The Vow" is the only one that I had written a lot of before the album. That's the only one, at least on my end, that I'd done before. Because I was going to perform that at our wedding, just that first part.

And I wrote that on guitar, which is unusual for me. I wrote "The Vow" on guitar from chords that Joe taught me, so it was significant in that way.

That song wouldn't exist if it wasn't for Joe, in two ways. If we hadn't had a relationship, that song would never have been written, and if he hadn't taught me a few chords on guitar. He forced me to learn some chords. I was really resistant. But if he hadn't taught me those, I wouldn't have ever written a song on a guitar using chords, probably.

So, that one was just haunting me after I'd already started writing for the album. It was just pissing me off that no one was going to get to hear this semi-collaborative effort from me and Joe, even though Joe never knew it. He never got to hear it.

But yeah, so it happened right away, and I knew that it was going to be all about Joe. I don't know how it couldn't have been.

If someone were to tell me, "I don't think you should write an album like this. That's too sad," or something, I don't think that I could make music ever again. If someone was trying to stop that creative process, I wouldn't even have any interest in writing music, because music is how I process everything.

I'm sure Joe was a kind of co-pilot through this process, even though he's not here anymore.

Shaw: Oh, totally. I feel like I use Joe, and I make a lot of decisions now based on WWJD: what would Joe do? How would Joe feel about this? And I feel like Joe would love anything creative that we're doing to get through this or to learn to live with this.

Blanchard: He also was always pushing people. I mean, not pushing, but quietly encouraging people to make more stuff.

Shaw: Yeah, he was such a good fan. He had so many ideas, always, and was always trying to inspire me about more merch ideas, or, "Why don't you guys do more live karaoke?" Or just always encouraging us to put out more content, because he knew what the people loved. He was very conscious of that stuff.

Was bringing this incredibly raw music to market a strange experience?

Shaw: I was really stressed out about choosing singles because I always think of singles as teasers to represent the whole album, but I believe that in the industry, the way you use singles is different now. They're looking more for things that are going to sell and have a lot of plays because they're really catchy or whatever.

And us musicians, we have to try to keep up with those things because we need to keep this as our job. So, I understand being flexible, but there was this toddler in me that was like, No, I don't want to do it that way. I want songs that are going to be my favorite, most important songs that I feel like represents Joe and this tragedy the most.

But at the same time, I was too scared to use songs that are too intimate. To me, "Real or Magic" — I was really, really resistant to using that song as a single because it's so sad and tender. That's maybe one of the most tender, vulnerable songs I've ever written, and it's about the realest moment I've ever had.

It was the last song I showed the boys because I was so nervous about it, and they really saw a lot of beauty and potential in the song and wanted to make it soar. And then when everyone wanted it as a single, I was just like, "No, it's too sad. It's too intimate. People are going to know everything."

Blanchard: That's what people want, man.

Shaw: Now I'm used to it because I'm building some armor before a tour, but the idea of doing that one every night [was daunting].

People want to hear your singles when you're playing live, and playing that, I was like, "Am I going to be able to play this all the time? How is it going to feel to have people singing that song with us?"

And it turns out it feels good. It's not like people are singing "Real or Magic" and have no idea what it's about. I mean, I'm sure there's lots of people that don't know, but the overall feeling is that people are with us.

Blanchard: I'm conscious of it a lot, because you're playing these songs over and over and you become a little bit numb to them, but they were so intense when we first wrote them. And they're still intense.

We've been doing these weird or silly cover versions of these songs that we're going to start releasing on social media. And we did a version of "Real or Magic" that's ... I don't know, it's not silly, I guess, but it's a totally different vibe.

Humor is a powerful tool amid grief.

Shaw: It's definitely a powerful tool. You're taking a break from the misery, and just letting yourself go, and [allowing yourself] to be free and enjoy [yourself] for a while.

Can you talk about the point where it started to feel like a full-fledged record? Because that's what it is; it's lush and multifaceted. It doesn't feel like a hastily scrawled diary entry.

Shaw: I am glad we were able to get that across. I'm really glad that it doesn't just sound depressed and low all the time. I think it really has an overall positive feeling.

I really feel like the album is kind of like an adventure. I think about Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee going on their adventure, and the album really does a beautiful job at representing the variety or the spectrum of emotions.

I feel really, really proud of that. It's hard to put into words, and I felt it was much easier to put into music.

Marcus King Is Spilling His Guts On Mood Swings — But He's Always Serving The Song