Why Did Weezer Come with Windows? | Nostalgia Nerd

foreign [Music] [Applause] memories of Windows 95 you start it up you navigate to the fun stuff videos MPEG folder you click on Weezer and you get a full music video on your desktop PC it's of 1995 technology almost but if you want a chance to win the height of today's technology then sponsor fast hosts have the ultimate work from home bundle up for grabs later in this video I've got to go back to the office now oh but why is this even on the Windows 95 CD-ROM I mean it's tucked away in several subfolders on the actual installation CD it's hardly prominent you have to browse to it and then open it it just feels out of place like an afterthought in so many ways but yet it has become synonymous with Microsoft's groundbreaking operating system so why did Weezer come with Windows 95 foreign to understand this situation we first have to go back to 1991 with the launch of MS-DOS 5. [Music] welcome to the Microsoft MS-DOS 5 upgrade training this is the first time MS-DOS has been available as an upgrade it's new this was about as exciting as an operating system launch got in the early 90s a computer scientist rapping about how exciting it is to upgrade your command line driven OS don't get me wrong I would have been sold in a heartbeat but many wouldn't this was the new radical 90s the MTV generation out were walkmans inward disk Runners out were stop-motion movie effects in was the incredulity of CGI animation out were computers just for nerds and in were computers for well everyone so Microsoft needed a new approach in fact everyone needed a new approach apart from you Sega you were back on the money for the time being maybe the release of Windows 3.1 in April 1992 would sort things out and taking place in software is the move to the graphical environment Microsoft made an early commitment to the graphical approach because we saw that it offered many significant benefits one of those no no no no no no no no in this video you're going to see the future windows Microsoft first came up with Bill just stop it for Christ's sake Microsoft had an image problem and it wasn't going to fix itself in the early to mid 90s things moved slower the worldwide web was in its emerging stages and would only start to be used by universities or people extremely embedded in the tech industry by 1993 onwards but general public barely had a clue what it even was and social media wasn't even a glint in anyone's eye so the options for companies to get their messages out were limited you could do TV advertising as we've seen you could launch a promotional VHS and give it away as we've seen you could run an advert in the media or conduct an interview but to make an impact you had to do something big sweeping and unprecedented but to make a sweeping statement to work you really needed a product to back it up or at least a product that was in the right place at the right time in 1994 computers weren't only seen as geeky they were by their very design geeky to boot into your IBM PC you needed to be familiar with the product in that advertising MS-DOS MS-DOS was a command line driven operating system so to navigate around your hard drive you needed to know commands commands like CD to change directory dirt and list for contents of your directory or folder if you prefer Dell to delete files move to move them from place to place and to execute a program you had to navigate to its folder and then enter the file name this is how Windows worked navigate to the windows directory or set a default path to it type win and it would boot Windows might have had its own memory video and processor management features but it still needed dos to run it just sat on top providing a somewhat easy to use graphical user interface now sure you could get Windows to automatically boot when starting your computer by creating a command in your auto exec dot bat file a file which automatically executed on boot but again for that you needed knowledge computers just weren't easy to use that is unless you had something like an Amiga or more specifically a Mac when Windows 95 was announced it promised incredible new features like Plug and Play A streamlined GUI experience straight from boot an easy to use task and menu system for accessing programs long character file names a recycle bin will let you restore files and the ability to drop files anywhere you want on the desktop the thing is Mac OS already had those features in fact it had had them for years so during the run-up TV Windows 95 launch Apple would take numerous Digs at Microsoft's new OS some segments were calling it Macintosh 87 instead of windows 95. Apple employees at Cupertino had bumper stickers saying Windows 95 equals System 7 System 7 already being 4 years old by that point and when Windows 95 actually launched Apple took out a full page ad in the Wall Street Journal mocking the 8.3 character file limit that PC users had suffered with for so long under dos but this negative advertising wasn't enough to raise Apple's fortunes especially when compared to this oh crap this is the wrong advert this is that fast host promotion I was talking about at the start of the video still while we're here fast hosts is a UK based hosting company that can support all your hobbies or businesses for me data is of Paramount importance just making sure everything I film is backed up is crucial that's why I use fast hosts cloud backup and then I don't have to worry about it everything is automatically stored in the cloud even the footage I record on my mobile try it out and you'll get five gigabytes of storage free or maybe you need a dedicated server to run your online business passion project or just an emulation server that you can play from anywhere well fast host's dedicated raid servers let you customize operating systems storage RAM and even choose between AMD or Intel processors with secure UK data centers on limited bandwidth and 24 7 support now if you reside in the UK then fast hosts are offering the chance for you to win the ultimate work from home setup by answering this techie test question [Music] foreign did Microsoft release Internet Explorer 3 for Windows that's it head to the link below enter your details and you could be in with a Chance full terms and conditions are on the website now let's get back to that other advert I was talking about [Music] positive advertising just has more energy it's so much more efficient at getting your message out there and Microsoft were full of it at this point just look at all those things you can start doing but as well as TV commercials accompanied by The Rolling Stones they were running newspaper adverts radio adverts launching cyber sitcoms featuring Jennifer Aniston and Matthew Perry that you could pop into your video player Club is down the hall and watch it again and again and again they were holding events in cities they lit up the Empire State Building they launched Windows beer they even gave away free copies of the times to anyone in London who wanted one if you could think of a form of 90s promotion they were on it and like I said earlier their timing was perfect Netscape Navigator had arrived on the scene in December 1994. this new shiny web browser allowed anyone with the technical know-how to grab a modem plug it into their PC and start browsing the World Wide Web combined with the new multimedia age of sound and CD-ROM the computer was the place to go the most exciting thing we'd had up to this point was watching O.J Simpson trundle down the motorway on live TV but now an entire world of video news blogs downloads and conspiracy theories could be at our fingertips so if a spring of 95 saw a rush for universities libraries and cyber cafes to get people connected and connected they got just in time for Windows 95 to open its arms to this world of new excitable computer users eager to jump on the information superhighway the official launch at Microsoft's campus in Redmond Washington saw The Tonight Show host Jay Leno co-hosting the grand spectacle alongside the Microsoft team and more specifically Bill Gates and what a show it was let's go to square one let's go back to the basics and explain I'll explain it for you all right and again for some of the laymen out there this here is the mouse this is the mouse you move that around this here is the mouse tail [Music] you can see the exact point here where Bill Gates suddenly realizes what a colossal Prat he's making of himself have a good good blame bill this was the same month in which Michael Jackson held his first online chat at the Museum of television and radio it was the same month but Sony showcased their plasmatron flat screen display it was the same month that visitors got to try out a new range of virtual 10 devices at the international Electronics fair in Berlin and it was the same month that Michael Ferno finally got his hands on two copies of Windows 95. their launch the like of which the world had never seen before or possibly since and it was the same month that Michael got home installed two copies of the operating system presumably on separate PCS and found that Weezer's body Holly was included in the rather reasonable sale price bargain so why was it on there again right yes of course Buddy Holly by Weezer was the second single from the band's self-titled debut album [Music] Buddy Holly was released on the 7th of September 1994 what would have been Buddy Holly's 58th birthday it reached number two on the U.S modern rock tracks chart number six in Canada and number 12 in the United Kingdom but it wasn't just an ear worm it was also an eye worm which sounds horrific and I will never use again because the music video directed by Spike Jones placed the band within the very believable Kung fines of a 1975 Happy Days episode specifically season 3 episode 4. edited by the excellent Eric zambrunan it was so well received that actually won the 1995 video music award for best alternative video Spike Jones is the greatest video director of all time yes that's it for Spike Jones but of course these triumphs alone don't mean automatically gets dumped onto the CD version of Microsoft's latest operating system other factors were at play the first was that Microsoft needed to continue their modern and fun marketing feel onto the operating system itself the truly rejuvenate those stagnant crusty window frames let's be honest Microsoft Bob wasn't going to cut it they needed to show that Windows had built-in multimedia features to excite the senses and Purge the Mind clearly they didn't want the first thing you installed to be Apple's QuickTime foreign Records who Weezer was signed to were further ahead of the technological curve than even Microsoft Microsoft might have spent Millions advertising their future intentions but a year earlier Geffen had already been practicing what they preached having released the first major label song for digital download Aerosmith's head first could be downloaded from CompuServe as a WAV file if you were patient enough to wait at least an hour for it to do so for most people using slower modems it would have been several more hours but the pairing was perfect digital media was something they'd had their sights on for a while and Windows 95 seemed the perfect time to expand on that and piggyback on Microsoft's marketing campaign a campaign that aligned the PC with the modern user and therefore modern music not the geek ideals of the past I had a chance to catch up with Jim Griffin geppin's then director for technology who told me it was our mission to bring the digital delivery of art to Geffen a mission that intersected with promoting our own art we practiced what we preached we spoke to the market one another and our vendors with an HTML enhanced voice that crossed all platforms Mac and windows and Linux Geffen realized that the launch of Windows 95 was a mammoth however getting some of their acts on the installation CD would be an incredible marketing opportunity so they made a deal Microsoft had a good number of spare megabytes on the installation CD and realized it would work well with their marketing campaign as well no money changed hands Microsoft camped our Windows 95 and office licenses and we provided content to include on disks it was simply a marketing deal not quite the three million dollars Microsoft paid to be Rolling Stones to use start me up but this was a much more Mutual deal and it was an upcoming marketing executive named Luke wood who had orchestrated it Luke went on to many great achievements including becoming president of Beats electronics and VP at Apple still heavily promoting digital downloads the deal certainly helped achieve its goals in a 2014 magnet magazine interview Weezer said Gotham never told us that they'd negotiated a deal with Microsoft and nobody in the band had a computer at that so we had no idea how big a deal that was I was Furious because at the time I was like how are they allowed to do this without our permission turns out it was one of the greatest things could have ever happened to us can you imagine that happening today it's like there's one video on YouTube and it's your video people were telling me you don't know how big this is you're on Windows 95. I didn't know what that meant so I never really got a grasp of how big we were becoming so it may have been stashed away in a folder but Microsoft knew that people were bound to find it after all they found all the other features of Windows 95. [Music] the Microsoft new and importantly Geffen knew that people would find it and be playing it over and over and over again I did I loved it it was like an entire music channel on my PC just with one song actually two but we'll get to that in a minute [Music] and it was genius because Buddy Holly had already been released a year prior so it was hardly likely to affect single sales in actuality a whole new set of customers went out and bought Weezer's Blue album and very likely their follow-up Pinkerton in 1996 a new fan base was being forged at exactly the same time as the new windows fan base the New York Times talking about these videos as operating system firsts is just one story out of many which circulated giving the OS just that extra bit of oomph not only did you get a new easy to use internet ready OS you also got two free music videos to boot with the launch of Windows 95 Microsoft fulfilled their deal Distributing windows and office licenses to Geffen this enabled Jim to set up a class leading web presence and intranet consisting of over 170 PCS and Macs so that the company could have an improved customer digital experience as well as allowing the company to better manage their data and employees before this point they were having to connect up to parent company Universal's Mainframe for some two and a half Grand per hour wood and Griffin had a Clear Vision of what digital music distribution could become and how to go about it in that sense Windows 95 not only acted as a promo tool for them but also helped push the company forward into this new digital age an age that they had in many ways begun after an equally as impressive career path these days Jim finds himself also in digital media as VP of digital rights at digital media company PEX and so I guess that closes the story on Weezer and windows 95. but wait what about that extra video [Music] another entirely different Track by Edie Brickell this track was called Good Times you remember now Edie Brickell and New Bohemians had already had success in 1988 with their debut album shooting rubber bands out of the Stars which landed at number four in the billboard album charts but by 94 had gone solo with the album Picture Perfect morning featuring the track good times like Buddy Holly good times was released in 94 but peaked at number 60 in the USA and barely made a scratch abroad meeting by 1995 it was barely remembered so Windows 95 for Ed may not have spurred another huge commercial success but it did in part resurrect Good Times putting it firmly in the minds of almost everyone who used Windows 95 in the 90s all in all it was a huge win for both Geffen and Microsoft and Weezer of course and all for the cost of a few hundred software licenses Also let's not forget that depending on the release of 95 you got as long as it's not the floppy disk version the fun stuff folder also contained a few other less exciting videos you might find a few animated Windows 95 trailers depending on region you might find the trailer for 1995's Robert Roy as well a somewhat more Breeze in marketing insert if you had a powerful PC you could even delve into the high perf directory and get videos which although about twice for size had much better sound quality no horrible compressed Sounds here thankfully [Music] by 1996 Microsoft had well and truly realized the power of the internet the Plus Pack may have included Internet Explorer 1 but 1996 August saw it being incorporated as standard into the operating system through service pack 2. of course by then it was Internet Explorer 3 which was worlds apart from the first version based on mosaic's Spyglass browser Microsoft had managed to take an operating system and not only make it easy to use but make it appealing sexy even and almost essential for the era we were heading into with regular updates it even managed to keep up with the times until the glory that was Windows 98 arrived showing us really what Windows 95 should have been in the first place Windows 95 may have stirred incredible excitement it may have shaken up the world of PCS it may have been riddled with bugs and glitches and it may have upset Apple until Steve Jobs came and re-injected his own excitement but that's what Microsoft does Good Times bad times give me some of that as for Buddy Holly well it made it into the Museum of Modern Art in 2011 and that in part is down to its inclusion with Windows 95. until next time I've been Nostalgia nerd Tiddly [Music] foreign [Music] [Music]

Channel: Nostalgia Nerd

Views: 221,570

Keywords: weezer, buddy holly, windows 95

Id: FOl94fO78nk

Length: 24min 36sec (1476 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 28 2021