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June 13, 2008

VARIATIONS ON A WEEZER SONG

The latest effort by Weezer has to be one of the most universally defiled albums by a once respected band. Here are a few sample reviews:

AV Club: "The breathtakingly stupid Weezer begs the question: Is this for real? Or are the over-processed hooks and lobotomized lyrics intentional self-parody?"

Pitchfork: At this point, Weezer is as much a brand as a band. When Cuomo relinquishes the mic, The Red Album could be by any group of modern-rock mediocrities.

You won't find a more half-heart Weezer apologist than "youres truly" - I like everything they've ever done (including MAKE BELIEVE, an album that was refreshingly about nothing of consequence) and yet I rarely sing their praises. Weezer's breakthrough "Blue Album" more or less freaked my happening in high school and their subsequent albums have been, on many levels, equally rewarding. And, for God's sake, my nickname was Weezer for two years of college, mainly because I wore their t-shirt all the time.

Rivers Cuomo is one of the closest things my generation has to Brian Wilson: he's got a similar eccentric, introspective genius. The guy has the superpower of writing pop songs, but there's a weird beating heart behind them. Take "Buddy Holly" for instance, which is a truly amazing song that rarely gets recognized on anything outside of a "Hey! Remember the 90s!" retrospect. The justly famous music video has, if anything, hurt the legacy of the song - when we think about it, we don't remember Cuomo's false posturing, bravura nerd-rapping, and anachronistic romance, but we remember Spike Jonze magical incorporation of The Fonz.

"Buddy Holly" is kind of a time-capsule for the 90s, because despite its relative recency, there were very few eras more removed from the four-eyed Holly and the ironically mismatched Mary Tyler Moore. But the key line from the chorus, often forgotten, "I don't care what they think about us anyway," is pretty pivotal for the Weezer canon. Weezer has a way of making innocuous phrases poetic, which is why teenagers love them. Like Cuomo, I must have lied about thinking what people thought about me as well, but I didn't tie it into some kind of odd, outsider narrative about a guy dreaming up scenarios about homies "dissing his girl" or another big bang putting some poor bastard "down on the floor."

But "I don't care what they think about us anyway" could be the title of the otherwise nameless "Red Album." That would probably explain why they're dressed up like the Village People. I've often grumbled about the tendency of music writers to forecast the careers of musicians they approve of, only to become jaded and bitter when the artist chooses a different direction. Here's Exhibit A. After PINKERTON, we were all expecting Cuomo's PET SOUNDS, and instead he's given us harmless melodies about going on vacation. Most of the drug-related lyrics are about as believable as the nine year old down the street who talks about his "cocaine smoking" experiences. Lou Reed singing "Heroin" this aint.

And in that rather unhallowed tradition, the "Red Album" is, frankly, brilliant. It features one radio hit (Pork and Beans), one nostalgic tear-jerker on the level of the Beach Boys Disney Girls 1957 (Heart Songs), one trippy art song (Dreamin), and one epic reminder of their greatness (The Greatest Man That Ever Lived). That last song is my favorite song in the Weezer catalog other than "Buddy Holly." It's got a ridiculous hook, Cuomo's obsession with reinventing hip-hop, a bevy of allusions, and the type of rockin' romantic hyperbole that makes music fun.

So, yes, I think it's one of the best albums of the year. And I'm not just saying that. Rather than finding it "unoriginal" or "breathtakingly stupid," I think it's kind of brave. These guys find a way to march to the beat of a different drummer, and they still get on the radio I don't care what you think about them anyway.

I don't care about that

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If you're keeping score, here are some of my favorite albums of the year, in no particular order

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, DIG LAZARUS DIG
Headlights, SOME RACING, SOME STOPPING
The Raconteurs, CONSOLERS OF THE LONELY
Spiritualized, SONGS IN A&E
Destroyer, TROUBLE IN DREAMS
Aimee Mann, @!!! SMILERS
Weezer, THE RED ALBUM

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In November, I reviewed INTO THE WILD and wrote this:

* - Apparently, Hirsch is playing SPEED RACER in a Wachowski-brothers version of the film. Wonder if the brothers W (one half of whom is a cross-dresser, or had a sex change, or something) will imbue this ridiculous bunch of kitsch with a complicated mythology and post-structuralist philosophical overtones? Don't be surprised if this ends up being the HEAVENS GATE of the TV Cartoon remake genre.

Looks like I was pretty prescient.

| By Andytown | 11:23 AM

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