The new Weezer album
Unlike Sheppard, our resident Weezer apologist, I was not overly impressed with the latest offering from Rivers and Co. The band has been trying to escape mediocrity and Rivers’ hit-or-miss songwriting for over a decade, so, I thought, perhaps they’d finally come loose and regain some of their past glory. After giving their third eponymous album a listen, I left feeling typically underwhelmed, constantly reminded of musical trends from the past several years. The lyrical highlights of Blue and Pinkerton, with their endearing awkwardness, are far in the past. Maybe I’ve taken three too many creative writing classes, but when I hear lines like “I’m a troublemaker/Never been a faker/Doing things my own way/And never giving up,” I cringe. I just expect more from the Ivy League. Musically, and even lyrically, the album is at least more adventurous than their last trio of releases, finally straying from the post-Pinkerton formula of straightforward, hook-heavy, riffy pop-rock. Also, I have mixed feelings on their swipe at Timbaland, this decade’s savior of commercial radio, in “Pork and Beans.” More importantly, however, I have a problem that a song is entitled “Pork and Beans.” Is this a Boy Scout Camp singalong? Seriously.
On my new rating scale, I award Weezer’s Weezer a 5.5 out of 9.6.
Even though I wasn’t too pleased with the new Weezer album, music isn’t quite dead. Every once in a while, although our ears are continually bombarded by the seemingly infinite stream of indie buzz bands and the irritating presence of commercial rock acts that sound like Nickelback, an album emerges that is exceptional, actually worth a listen, and curiously delightful in its moments of skull-crushing brutality and ethereal calm. For me, that album is Opeth’s Watershed. Undoubtedly, of all the Swedish prog death metal bands in this crazy world of ours, Opeth is one of the best, both in the complexity of their songwriting and in their welcome blending of different sounds. Despite the Guitar Hero phenomenon and the successes of metalcore acts such as Atreyu, Avenged Sevenfold, and Bullet for My Valentine, we closet metal lovers can always crawl back to Scandanavia, where the form hasn’t been destroyed by recent pandering to an emo-leaning target audience.
I award the new Opeth album a 7.3 out of 9.6.
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July 5th, 2008 at 11:04 am
I think that was a little harsh on Weezer. This album is the not the Blue Album or Pinkerton. Rivers has always had a desire to be well liked and commercially successful. I think these songs accomplish his goal and at the same time stay true to his roots. I hear what you are saying about the lyrics being childish, but that is why you loved Weezer when you were a child. The lyrics on the Blue Album are not really that much more intricate that this one. Pinkerton was the most musically advanced album they have put out and I would love to hear another album like that, but I just don’t think that is going to happen again.
I would rank this album third behind Pinkerton and Blue, but ahead of Green, Maladroit, and Make Believe.
July 5th, 2008 at 11:23 am
“Rivers has always had a desire to be well liked and commercially successful.”
And, for that, his music suffers. He should have embraced the initial backlash from Pinkerton. Then he could have gone off and made some more raw, honest, quirky tunes while people in the mainstream wondered “what happened to that ‘Buddy Holly’ band?”
July 5th, 2008 at 9:55 pm
I think that is what Rivers did after the Green album. Pinkerton was a reflection of his youth and his mood at the time. Those are things that he cannot retain. Maladroit was edgier and had bigger guitar riffs, much a reflection of Rivers life at the time.
It is actually funny because all of the self-titled albums are almost exclusively written for commercial success, where as the other albums I think were more a reflection on Rivers actual feelings, with a commercial song thrown in.