page_title: Songs from the Black Hole
section_title: Recording and abandonment
hierarchical_section_title: Songs from the Black Hole / Recording and abandonment
caption_attribution_description: English: A picture of the front of Electric Lady Studios for Mission #5 - CIS 3750.
context_page_description: Songs from the Black Hole is an unfinished, unreleased album by the American rock band Weezer recorded between 1994 and 1996. Intended to follow Weezer's 1994 self-titled debut album, it was to be a rock opera that expressed songwriter Rivers Cuomo's mixed feelings about rock-and-roll success. Its characters were to be voiced by members of Weezer, plus guest vocalists Rachel Haden and Joan Wasser.
  Cuomo recorded demos for Songs from the Black Hole over Christmas 1994, and Weezer held recording sessions over the following year. In late 1995, Cuomo enrolled at Harvard University, where his songwriting became darker and more confessional. Feeling the Black Hole concept was "too whimsical", he abandoned it; Weezer's second album became Pinkerton, including some songs once intended for Songs from the Black Hole.
  Two tracks, "I Just Threw Out the Love of My Dreams" and "Devotion", were released as Pinkerton B-sides. Demos, lyrics and sheet music were released on Cuomo's compilations Alone, Alone II, and Alone III, and on the 2010 Pinkerton reissue. The songs received positive reviews, and Rolling Stone described Songs from the Black Hole as a "lost mythical masterpiece".
context_section_description: Cuomo recorded demos for Songs from the Black Hole on an 8-track recorder at his family home in Connecticut over Christmas 1994. Most of the songs already existed and were rewritten to fit the Songs for the Black Hole concept. Cuomo performed every part himself, pitch-shifting his voice for the female characters. To add a science fiction element to Weezer's sound, he used synthesizers including an Electrocomp 101 he had recently purchased from a pawn shop in rural Connecticut. By February, he had completed an initial track list. 
  While Weezer was on tour in Europe later that month, Sharp returned to America due to a family emergency, leaving the band stranded in Hamburg for a week. Cuomo and drummer Patrick Wilson rented a studio and recorded additional demos, including a version of "Blast Off!" using a vocoder for the robot character of M1.
  In March 1995, Cuomo, who was born with one leg shorter than the other, had extensive surgery to lengthen his leg followed by months of painful physiotherapy. This affected his songwriting, as he would spend long periods hospitalized under the influence of painkillers. According to Cuomo, around this time the rock opera concept "started to feel too whimsical for where I was emotionally, going through the pain of the procedure ... I went to a more serious and dark place".
  Recording began in August 1995 in New York City's Electric Lady Studios, where Weezer had recorded their debut album, but the sessions were not productive. Further sessions were held in September and October, and Weezer recorded versions of "Blast Off!", "Longtime Sunshine", "I Just Threw Out the Love of My Dreams", "Tired of Sex" and "Getchoo". Weezer had not yet abandoned Songs from the Black Hole, but the songs were recorded, according to Koch, with "no story, no theatrics, no characters".
  At the end of 1995, wanting to "escape the limelight", Cuomo enrolled at Harvard University to study classical composition. Becoming socially isolated, and still recovering from surgery, Cuomo's songwriting became, according to Koch, "darker, more visceral and exposed, less playful". In January 1996, Weezer restarted recording in Los Angeles at Sound City Studios with new material. The Songs from the Black Hole tracks "Superfriend", "She's Had a Girl" and "Dude, We're Finally Landing" were recorded, but shelved.
  By May 1996, Cuomo had settled on a new direction for Weezer's second album, expressing his loneliness and frustration at Harvard, and Songs from the Black Hole was abandoned. The decision was influenced by that year's release of Return of the Rentals, the debut album by Sharp's band the Rentals, as Cuomo felt it shared many musical and lyrical themes.
  Weezer's second album became Pinkerton, released on September 24, 1996. It includes "Tired of Sex", "Getchoo" and "No Other One": songs written before Songs from the Black Hole was conceived, rewritten to fit the Black Hole concept, and finally rewritten again for Pinkerton. In June 1996, after Pinkerton's completion, Weezer recorded the Songs from the Black Hole tracks "I Just Threw Out the Love of My Dreams" (with Haden on vocals) and "Devotion" as B-sides for the singles "El Scorcho" and "The Good Life" respectively.
caption: Electric Lady Studios in New York City
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