"Buddy Holly" by Weezer

Birthday wishes go out today to Rivers Cuomo, uber-cute front man for alt-rock wunderkinds Weezer; here they perform their 1994 single Buddy Holly in the kind of pop cultur-iffic alt-universe of which we at the Pop Culture Institute can't get enough. Art house auteur Spike Jonze has dropped the band into an episode of Happy Days, complete with a cameo by original cast member Al Molinaro!

Released on what would have been Buddy Holly's 58th birthday (had the musician survived The Day the Music Died) the single appears on the band's debut album Weezer, sometimes called The Blue Album; despite what is in every sense an artistic tour de force*, though, according to Cuomo himself the song almost didn't make it onto the album.

*The single was produced by New Wave legend Ric Ocasek, after all!
*