Weezer | Weezer
By Professor Honeydew • Jun 6th, 2008 • Category: On the Record
Most Likely To: break your heart without even trying.
Dear Rivers,
I am so confused.
Remember those heady days in the mid ’90s when you would toss off gems and sweep them under the rug as b-sides? “I Just Threw Out the Love of My Dreams” beat The Rentals at their own game. “Jamie” is still one of the best songs of the decade, filled with the immediacy and emotional directness of your first record. I know you’re a genius, but maybe I just need you to be a little more tortured.
I could deal with you fading into obscurity, clinging tightly to my worn copy of Pinkerton, lightly caressing its liner notes with a gentle fingertip. I could come to grips with you putting out a series of God awful albums.
But when you do what you do on the red album, it just kills me. Slowly. Painfully. Mercilessly.
What the fuck, Rivers? Are you going to be the rock god we all want you to be or some sophomoric bullshit artist? If this new record were a consistent one, I could accept “Pork and Beans” as the new “El Scorcho”–I was ready to do that for you!
But no, you couldn’t do that, could you? You had to follow it up with “Heart Songs,” a piece of writing so spectacularly pathetic that it amounts to an insipid list of songs followed by the show-stopping chorus of “These are my heart songs / They never feel wrong.”
Wow. I used to really admire your lyricism, so heartfelt and unafraid. What happened to “Across the Sea” and “Undone”? Instead, you give me a quote of “It takes two to make a thing go right” and call it a day? Are you complacent, oblivious, or just content to leech your past artistry for all it’s worth?
What the fuck is “Everybody Get Dangerous”? Really, dude. Is that a stock dj-scratching-a-turntable sample I heard before the chorus hits? You’re supposed to remind me of the warm and fuzzy part of the 1990s, not the embarrassing studio gimmickry and disposble production values.
Yet there’s “Dreamin’,” a gorgeous song like the ones you used to write, and the very end of the horribly misguided conceptual mess called “The Greatest Man That Ever Lived (Variations on a Shaker Hymn)” where you bust into blue-era, mammoth guitars and inspired vocal delivery. What a cocktease! Why flaunt that you can still write a good song if you aren’t going to spend a whole thirty minutes doing it?
I mean, you’ve heard “Thought I Knew,” right? You know you aren’t in the Barenaked Ladies, right?
I’ve got to admit that “Troublemaker” grew on me, hard as it is to hear you adopt the conceit of a jaded rock star considering how most of your songwriting smacks of just that in earnest. Musically, it’s passable, and on a great record would be easily overlooked, especially since you rhyme “bitch” with “kids” in a chuckle-worthy bit of oral contortion.
At this point, I just don’t know what to do. Do I shield myself from all of your future records, having been burned one time too many? Will I have the heart to do that, to quash the feelings of idiotic optimism I still harbor in the hopes that maybe–just maybe–you’ll pull through and serve up a perfectly cooked slice of the rock you’re capable of? Perhaps it’s best if I just move on, content with those first glorious memories, leaving you to the kids in My Chemical Romance t-shirts.
Your knife, Rivers–it cuts so very deep.
Listen to “The Greatest Man That Ever Lived (Variations on a Shaker Hymn)” from Weezer below:
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Professor Honeydew is an esteemed Ph.D. (Dr. of Listology), espouser of unpopular culture, recovering recluse, and cognac enthusiast.
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I was listening to this in the record store yesterday and have to admit I was equally appalled. While there are some good tap-your-feet moments in the first couple of tracks, the overwhelmingly trite lyrics smack you in the face every which way you turn. It’s especially hard when you go in wanting to love an album and as you listen slowly feel yourself sliding into disillusionment and pity for what these artists are throwing away. Just when Weezer should be reaching their pinnacle – a strong audience-base and enough money to successfully market them on a wide-scale – they produce another album that is lazy and half-hearted. Sigh.
“Everybody Get Dangerous” – Isn’t that a Black-Eyed Peas song or something? Wow, Rivers. Wow. At any rate, I’m sure he makes up for the major suck factor with that ironic cowboy getup.
Dr. Honeydew, you soul-doctor Rivers. I hope he hears your would-be-healing words of counsel and answers the burn in our hearts. Until then, I listen to Destroyer.
Love,
Classon Avnew Crew
That “Greatest Man That Ever Lived” song is a schizophrenic mess, a “Bohemian Rhapsody” with no balls.
But did anyone notice that toward the end, when it’s good for a few seconds, Rivers changes the vocal melody to match it to the “we were good as married in my mind but married in my mind’s no good” melody from “Pink Triangle”?
Add self-plagiarizer to the list of offenses.
godonnybrook: I’m even starting to doubt that the cowboy getup IS ironic – maybe Rivers Cuomo actually thinks this is an appropriate way for a grown/heterosexual man to dress . Who knows anymore?????
It’s funny you mention self-plagiarizer; the Timmy T and I were watching MTV last night (Made, of course) and Weezer came on, and we thought that the only decent parts of the song were the parts that were mundanely so very Weezer. So Weezer it’s boring by now.
This record is better than the word “Donnybrook”.
In my opinion.
donny, have you heard the deluxe tracks yet? i completely agree w/ your takes on much of this record (TGMTEL is flawed but i do enjoy parts of it; EGD and “heart songs” are just painful), but without reservation, i put “miss sweeney,” “pig” and “the spider” up there with cuomo’s best. “king” is uh, another scott song that’s…better than “cold dark world”? but seriously, those other three. tops.
That’s adorable. Let’s clear up some confusion here: Donnybrook is not a word we invented, nor is it the name of any of our writers. Though you give me a good idea agoodflyingbird, maybe we should all call ourselves “Donny.”
Like more or less every other Weezer fan on the planet I still have Blue and Pinkerton as my firm favourites, but I find this new album very promising. I am thinking that the Red Album may well be my 3rd favourite Weezer album, and I seem to share that view with quite a lot of other people, it just seems a shame that Professer Honeydew doesnt have the same optisism. However, like “agoodflyingbird” I feel that a good listen to the delux tracks could change his/her mind.
Wow. Just… wow. I really dug this album, and its still growing on me.
How many spins did you give this thing? Sometimes, music has to grow on you, and it turns out those are the best ones.
And if you think Red Album is so horrible, I’d like to see you write a record half as good as this. if that happens then we’ll talk.
See what happens when you say not-so-nice things about Weezer? The apologists come out in droves!
First off, I’ve listened to the album upwards of 15 times trying very hard (some might say desperately) to turn over every rock in search of its redemptive qualities. The fact is that they just aren’t there, apart from the scant examples mentioned in the review…and there is no way I would give any other sub-par release that many tries in the hopes that I will find something to make me change my mind. It’s only out of a love for what Weezer is capable of.
In my quest to find it palatable, I even gave the bonus tracks a listen, but there isn’t any salvation there either (a pretty standard cover of “The Weight” doesn’t magically turn TRA into a kick-ass record). This argument, for the record, is moot since they aren’t on the record being reviewed but rather an expanded special edition.
To Job, who idiotically employs the “let’s see you do better” argument, I hate to even dignify your challenge. Still, in the spirit of dialogue I will state the obvious: a critic’s job is to critique; an artist’s job is to produce art. That’s how it works. I wouldn’t ask Rivers Cuomo to sort through stacks of promo CDs and write reviews all day, just like he wouldn’t ask me to write an adequate follow-up to Pinkerton.
Put it this way: when you go to a restaurant and the food isn’t good, do you barge into the kitchen and make the chef dinner? I’d hope not (it would be some sort of health code violation, I’m sure, unless you wore one of those attractive hairnets). Without doing that, you probably still feel qualified saying “this steak is overcooked” or “the wine is corked” (or, in your case, “these French fries are cold and limp”).
The fact is that Rivers gave up caring what music journalists thought when he released the Weezer II, the Green Album, as is evidenced by its robotic void of a soul. If he did care what critics (or his original fans, for that matter) thought, he would have rewarded them with something that reflects his immense and underutilized talents.
Otherwise, just go read basically every review of this album–none of which I had read before penning my own take–and notice how the complaints rapidly become leitmotifs.
The problem with this record isn’t the reviewer–it’s the record. Go listen to “Suzanne” (a freakin’ b-side) and then a random track from TRA and tell me with a straight face that it’s the same band.
But Black Enterprise gave it a B! If you can’t trust Black Enterprise for your music reviews, who can you trust?
In other news, I wonder why there isn’t a White Enterprise magazine?
There is a White Enterprise magazine. It’s co-edited by the klan and Dick Cheney. These are proven facts so don’t bother verifying them.
I don’t see how “Heart Songs” is any more twee or lyrically objectionable than “Island in the Sun”. At least “Heart Songs” rocks out half-properly towards the end. On that note, a twee Weezer song is a Weezer song. I mean, come on, “Butterfly”? I don’t think they don’t realise what they’re putting out. A pseudo-rap at the start of “Variations on…”? “Everybody Get Dangerous”? They’re knowing jokes. He looks like he’s from Brokeback Mountain or something. I like Weezer; I’m not a “Weezer Fan”. Rivers et al. are just having fun. Get over it people! It’s not perfect: but it is better than most of the crap coming out.
“Get over it people! It’s not perfect: but it is better than most of the crap coming out.”
That’s just something that people who listen to bad music say. There is more amazing music being released every week than I could ever hope to listen to, so I’m not going to waste my time with records I have to settle for.
Also, your “twee” characterization is irksome. Tullycraft is twee. The Field Mice were twee. “Butterfly” is just a sensitive, quiet song. Two totally different things. The only twee thing about Weezer: they had a hit single about a (figurative) sweater.