The Alternative Number Ones: Green Day’s “J.A.R.”

In The Alternative Number Ones, I’m reviewing every #1 single in the history of the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks/Alternative Songs, starting with the moment that the chart launched in 1988. This column is a companion piece to The Number Ones, and it’s for members only. Thank you to everyone who’s helping to keep Stereogum afloat.

Did you ever hear "American Girls"? Not "American Girl." I'm not talking about Tom Petty here. "American Girls," plural. It's the only song ever recorded by an extremely short-lived Weezer side project called Homie. Rivers Cuomo wrote that song in 1997, when Weezer were in a state of total uncertainty. All four Weezer members were involved in recording the track in one way or another, along with people from bands like Soul Coughing and Cake. It's fucking awesome, and it represents an alternate-reality version of what Weezer could've become after Pinkerton if that was what they wanted. It's grander and sleeker than anything on Pinkerton, and it's got keyboards and breakbeats and pianos, but it never sounds like an overproduced latter-day Weezer song. It's got a blissed-out gang-chant hook that still gets stuck in my head all the time.

"American Girls" technically isn't a Weezer song, and it definitely never appeared on a Weezer album. It's still my favorite Weezer song, by a pretty significant margin. Here's where "American Girls" did end up: On the soundtrack of Meet The Deedles, a 1998 grossout comedy that nobody bothered to remember. I have never seen Meet The Deedles, so maybe it's some undiscovered cinematic gem, but it sure looks like the stupidest thing that anyone ever imagined. So here we've got this absolute one-off miracle of a song buried on the soundtrack to a piece of cursed and forgotten cinema. I only know "American Girls" because one of my college roommates found the track on Napster and became an evangelist for it, putting it on mix CDs for all his friends. If you aren't acquainted with "American Girls," you should acquaint yourself. (Weezer will eventually appear in this column, but Homie sadly will not.)