A MUSIC FAN disappointed with a stream of disappointing albums from alternative rock band Weezer has come up with a novel way to stop the band from producing further lacklustre material: he hopes to raise $10m to encourage the group to disband.

James Burns – who professes not to be a fan of the band himself, but has friends who are continually disappointed with the band’s output – has set up a page online where users can contribute donations to the fund.

Burns’s logic is that if everyone who bought a copy of the band’s 1996 album ‘Pinkerton’ – a peak from which most fans think Weezer have been in constant decline – contributes $12 each, the fund can be reached.

Burns told a Seattle newspaper, The Stranger, that he had come with the idea after spending a night drinking with his friends, and had discussed a recent campaign where fans of a struggling HiFi shop had clubbed together to pay off the firm’s mortgage.

If other 1990s one-hit wonders did not get coverage when they continued to release new material, he said, it was strange that Weezer – best known for their hit 1994 ‘Buddy Holly’ – were afforded such coverage each time they produced a new album.

“Every year, [singer] Rivers Cuomo swears that he’s changed, and that their new album is the best thing that he’s done since ‘Pinkerton’,” Burns wrote in his plea for donations. “And what happens? Another pile of crap like [unloved albums] ‘Beverly Hills’ or ‘I’m Your Daddy’.”

If the fund reaches its target and the band declines the payment, Burns says he will repay the fund. Weezer drummer Patrick Wilson, however, has coyly tweeted that if the fund reaches $20m, they would do a “deluxe breakup”.

Is there a band that you’d love to pay to make go away? Let us know who’d you want to get rid of.