The story starts when it was hot and it was summer and I had just wrapped up my leg day at the gym. I trudged, practically dead-legged, through the parking lot to my car, hobbled in, cranked the AC, then heard, out of all the sounds to hear in the world, the lyrics to “Sweater Weather” playing on the radio… in 2023…in 115°F heat-indexed weather. What? So, after cooling off, driving home, and, of course, singing along, I did what any curious soul would do – I tried to figure out how this 2010s relic of a song got airplay on US radio a whole decade after its release. And to do that, I backtracked to when The Neighbourhood – the band behind “Sweater Weather” – had yet to exist and its five members were just estranged teenagers trying to make it in the music industry.
Photo by Obi - @pixel7propix on Unsplash
The First Wave: The Debut Of 'Sweater Weather'
After his band broke up, a 19-year-old Jesse Rutherford (The Neighbourhood's lead singer) began to pursue a solo career in hip-hop/R&B. Around the same time, he started hanging out with a guy he'd met playing local gigs around LA – Zachary Abels (one of The Neighbourhood's guitarists). Being music-acquaintances-turned-friends, the duo was always up to something musical and the day they were hanging out at Abels' mom's house was no different. Abels was messing around on the guitar when he played a riff that caught Rutherford's attention. Rutherford recorded the riff, built a beat around it, added lyrics, then sent a demo to friend Jeremey Freedman (another one of The Neighbourhood's guitarists) who refined it. It was the first song the three of them had written together and the song that made them believe they could be something more than just teenagers making music at their parents house. That was the start of The Neighbourhood. And, with the exception of a few melodic changes in the first verse, the song they made that day in 2011 was the song I heard on my way home from the gym in 2023 – “Sweater Weather”. Wild.
But what's even crazier is that 'Sweater Weather' wasn't this massive hit when it was originally put out, it was just a song on an album from a band no one had ever heard of before. In 2012, The Neighbourhood released 'Sweater Weather' off of their debut EP titled I'm Sorry… and it did nothing but garner a little bit of buzz at first. But when a song is truly great, a little buzz is all you need (check out how 'Sure Thing', 'Fast Car', or 'Cruel Summer' also made a resurgence this year). The buzz kept growing and growing and growing, so much so that an entire year after its release, it went on to crack the Billboard Hot 100, and six months after that, it peaked at No. 14. The song was a slow-burn hit. Little did they know the flame was nowhere close to dying out.
The Second Wave: The Tik-Tokification Of 'Sweater Weather'
In the years that followed the song's initial success, 'Sweater Weather' would go on to make an annual resurgence each Fall/Winter, earning it the title of not only a slow-burn hit, but a seasonal one as well. However, in 2020 the resurgence was different – it was much, much bigger. Thanks to Tik Tok (and the global pandemic that kept us glued to our phones), an entire new generation was introduced to 'Sweater Weather'. Those already familiar with the tune enjoyed the nostalgia that came with its newfound traction on the platform, while Gen Z rebranded the song as a coming out anthem. Then, right on cue, at the end of last year, the song, again, saw an uptick in streams because of Tik Tok. This time around, a sped-up version of the song got the dance treatment which is a surefire recipe for virality on the app. A whole 10+ years after the song had been written, 'Sweater Weather' was still finding new ears, making it not a slow-burn hit, not a seasonal hit, but a classic.
The Third Wave: The Celebration Of 'Sweater Weather'
After the most recent surge in streams at the end of 2022, 'Sweater Weather' entered RIAA Diamond Certified territory, meaning the song was approaching 10-million units sold. To achieve this milestone (which only 105 other songs have to their name), commemorate the 10th anniversary of the song's first wave of success, and, of course, make money, Columbia Records re-sent the tune to US radio. To make the most out of the re-push, Columbia Records knew it had to be strategic. The label decided to send 'Sweater Weather', a song *superficially* about the cold, to radio in the early Summer of this year for what I hypothesize to be two reasons. One, according to spotify data, the song goes through a lull in streams during the summer because it's a September-February oriented song. By sending it to radio in May, the routine decline in streams during May and the months that follow might not happen, or, at the very least, might be blunted. Two, people love what they can't have, and in summer, you can't have sweater weather, making people more inclined to stream the song out of longing for cooler weather. Regardless of why the label re-pushed the song the way they did, the re-push has proven successful. As of this week – which in music started on Friday 7/7/2023 – 'Sweater Weather' was the 7th most popular on my local KISS FM station, only behind significantly newer material. I have a hunch this classic isn't going anywhere anytime soon.
No shoes, no shirt, no blouse, no problem,
The Monochrome Man