Weezer’s ‘Island In The Sun’ Joins Spotify Billions Club
The track from the band’s 2001 ‘Green Album’ became their first track to cross one billion streams on Spotify.
One of Weezer’s best-known songs has joined an exclusive club. “Island In The Sun,” from the band’s 2001 self-titled album (also known as The Green Album), has officially crossed one billion streams on Spotify, becoming one of just over one thousand songs on the entire platform to achieve this feat. This is Weezer’s first song to reach one billion streams.
“Island In The Sun” was released as the second single from the album Weezer, on the heels of the track “Hash Pipe.” While the song was not an enormous success upon its release—it didn’t crack the Billboard Hot 100—it steadily became one of the best known songs in the band’s catalog, frequently being used in media and spiking in popularity several times through the years. Over the past 24 years, the track has appeared in shows like The Simpsons, The Sopranos, and 9-1-1 and the movies Trolls Band Together and Aquamarine.
After the band’s previous album, 1996’s Pinkerton, Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo made a conscious effort to turn away from the darker, more breakup-oriented lyrics that appeared on that album. In a 2001 interview with Spin, Cuomo said The Green Album made an effort to be “like early Beatles, Burt Bacharach, Beach Boys–songs that stand up without having to be some sort of personal revelation.” Drummer Pat Wilson agreed, saying “I mean, those songs from that era have no fluff, no artsy breaks. They’re meant for the hoi polloi–versus emotional freakouts.” “Island In The Sun” was one of the tracks that emerged from trying out this writing style.
The track also ended up getting two music videos. The first shows the band playing at a Mexican wedding, and the second, directed by Spike Jonze, shows the band playing with animals like a bear, a chimp, and cats. But it is the fan-made videos on TikTok that may have a bit more to do with the track’s approach to the billions club; the song has been used in nearly 340,000 videos on the social media app.
