Van Weezer

Van Weezer is the fifteenth studio album by American rock band Weezer, released on May 7, 2021 by Crush Music and Atlantic Records. Featuring a classic rock and hard rock inspired sound, the album was announced in September 2019 with an original release date of May 2020, coinciding with announcement of the band's participation in the Hella Mega Tour alongside Green Day and Fall Out Boy. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the tour was delayed indefinitely and Van Weezer's release was delayed until May 2021.
Four singles were released ahead of the album's release; "The End of the Game", "Hero", "Beginning of the End" and "I Need Some of That". The album received generally positive reviews from critics.
Background
In February 2019, Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo began working on new songs with a hard rock influence, in contrast to the pop rock and electropop sound that had been featured on the band's previous albums Pacific Daydream, the Teal Album, and the then-upcoming Black Album. In an interview that month with Entertainment Weekly, Cuomo mentioned that an album tentatively titled Van Weezer was in the works, and that it would take the band "back to big guitars". He remarked that when the band would perform "Beverly Hills" live in concert, he would perform a guitar solo that was not present on the recorded version of the song. "We noticed that, recently, the crowd just goes crazy when I do that. So it feels like maybe the audience is ready for some shredding again."
The album has been compared to their fourth studio album Maladroit (2002), and is inspired by 1970s and 1980s hard rock and heavy metal bands such as Kiss, Black Sabbath, Metallica and Van Halen (the last of whom inspired the album's title). Cuomo would also state that the album is "Blue Album-ish, but a little more riffy."
Release
On September 10, 2019, the first single from Van Weezer, "The End of the Game" was released along with an announcement that the album would be released on May 15, 2020. The announcement coincided with the revelation of the Hella Mega Tour, a 2020 concert tour featuring Weezer, Green Day, and Fall Out Boy. On May 6, 2020, the second single "Hero" was released onto streaming services; while Weezer announced that the album release would be delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, stating that despite this fans would receive "surprises" within the next week. A short snippet of "Blue Dream" debuted on The Simpsons episode "The Hateful Eight-Year-Olds", on which Weezer guest starred as themselves. On August 14, 2020, the band announced that the album had been delayed to May 2021 in order to coincide with the rescheduled Hella Mega Tour. That same day, the third single, "Beginning of the End" was released as a part of the soundtrack for Bill & Ted Face the Music.
On October 6, 2020, after Eddie Van Halen died, the album was dedicated to him. The track listing was announced on April 20, 2021, and the fourth single, "I Need Some of That" was released the following day.