Last week, punk-pop pioneers Weezer announced that their eighth studio album, the follow up to last year's mediocre 'Raditude' and their first album to be released on new label Epitaph, would be called 'Hurley'. Now, with the unveiling of the album's ridiculous artwork comes the revelation that the album was named 'Hurley' after the character from 'Lost'. Yes, it's a no frills picture of actor Jorge Garcia (above) who played Hugo 'Hurley' Reyes, on the hit ABC TV series.

Speaking to SpinnerMusic.co.uk, frontman Rivers Cuomo said, "We struggled super hard trying to come up with an album title ... [We tried] to find some kind of phrase that summed up the whole aesthetic behind the album: 'Heavy Mental', 'Smaller Than Life'. I was coming up with all kinds of stuff, but ultimately, we just went with some random word that doesn't really have anything to do with anything."

As for the artwork, he explained, "I just loved this photo of Jorge Garcia, it just had this amazing vibe. We didn't want to do a fourth self-titled record and we knew people would refer to it as 'the 'Hurley' record' even if left it without that title, so we just called it 'Hurley'. No words are on the cover because all we wanted was his amazing face."

I would suggest that Cuomo's recent bus crash may have left him a sandwich short of a picnic, except the idea and artwork for 'Raditude' were equally ridiculous. Perhaps, having lost their musical credibility some years ago, now Weezer are just messing with us for the laugh. One can only hope. I mean, they did release a football song. A FOOTBALL SONG!

'Hurley' is set for release in Ireland on September 10th, and will feature a collaboration with Ryan Adams on a track called 'Time Flies', as well as lead single 'Memories', which is currently streaming online, and does not bode particularly well for Weezer fans.

Weezer - Memories by Epitaph Records