Released December 3, 2012 Recorded 2011 Label Columbia | Format Digital download Genre Indie rock, indie pop | |
Length 4:00 (album version)
3:11 (Mike D radio edit) | ||
"Sweater Weather" is a song by American indie rock band The Neighbourhood. The song was written by group members Jesse Rutherford, Zach Abels and Jeremy Freedman, and was produced by Justyn Pilbrow. It serves as the lead single from their debut studio album, I Love You (2013). "Sweater Weather" reached number one on the Billboard Alternative Songs chart in June 2013, logging eleven non-consecutive weeks at the summit of the chart. It was re-released on November 2, 2013 in honor of the 2013 winter season.
Contents
Background and writing
"Sweater Weather" started in a similar way to how many other songs do. Zach Abels recalled to Radio.com, "One day Jesse was at my house and I was playing guitar. And he said, 'Hey that's pretty cool, let me record that.' And it just so happened to be "Sweater Weather." When we got done writing the song, when it was all said and done we were like 'Okay this is pretty good we should keep writing songs."
Rutherford told Swide.com that this track posed the biggest problem in expressing the emotions that he wanted to convey. He explained: "That song has done so much for us and it's a super solid song but it was the first one we wrote. We have grown a lot and have gotten our sound more locked in since that song. It still feels right alongside all the other songs but it definitely is the hardest one to put other tracks around."
"I think "Sweater Weather" might've been the best song we'd ever written," Rutherford added, "but I didn't think it was going to be the best song we'd ever write. It was kind of like getting a Platinum record, like a little tap on the butt."
Music video
The music video for "Sweater Weather", directed by Zack Sekuler and Daniel Iglesias Jr., shot in grayscale to go with their black-and-white theme was released on March 5, 2013.
Alternate versions
In 2013, H.P. Baxxter and Michael Simon (from German band Scooter) together with future band member Phil Speiser (called Dirty Disco Youth at the time) made an EDM house version of the song in the name "Baxxter, Simon and DDY". The song released as a web-single, and also got a music video, in which female singer Jaye Marshall appeared. Marshall also did the vocals for this version, as she had good relations with Scooter (they performed three tracks on the album Music For a Big Night Out).