Weezer -- Red
5/10
It's a trick!
With Weezer, since the mid 00's, there's always this statement when a lead single for one of their albums drops:
"Wow, this sounds like their stuff from the 90's! Maybe this album will be a return to that!"
And then it's not. All the way up until 2014, it never was.
When Weezer released "Pork and Beans," the lead single for 2008's Red, everybody, including this guy, got excited
"Pork and Beans" features the band's 90's power-pop-rock, with driving power chords, front-and-center. Sure, there's no Rivers Cuomo guitar solo, but all of the band's nerdy, defiant, mid-90's energy is here. It's also there on second-single, and album opener, "Troublemaker," which feels a little more juvenile than the band's earlier work, but does have some of the attitude. Of course, though, the entire album doesn't sound that way.
"Pork and Beans" features the band's 90's power-pop-rock, with driving power chords, front-and-center. Sure, there's no Rivers Cuomo guitar solo, but all of the band's nerdy, defiant, mid-90's energy is here. It's also there on second-single, and album opener, "Troublemaker," which feels a little more juvenile than the band's earlier work, but does have some of the attitude. Of course, though, the entire album doesn't sound that way.
To get the most honest look at Red, it's best to listen to track two, "The Greatest Man That Ever Lived (Variations on a Shaker Hymn)." Over the span of six minutes, Weezer experiment with genre after genre and tone after tone, offering several stunning rock moments, as well as several highly embarrassing ones not-so-rock moments.
Yes, Red kicks off a trilogy of experimental albums that would take Weezer from their weird 00's, to their even weirder 2010's. The band and their frontman, Rivers Cuomo, use those two more traditional singles as a fakeout, as Red actually features them throwing as many odd things at a wall for ten tracks as they can, seemingly not even caring if any of it sticks. Some of it does, like the aforementioned two singles, and the weird, throw-back, laid back rock of "Dreamin.'" I even dig the oft-derided "Heart Songs," a gentle number where Cuomo rattles off the music that's been important to him over his lifetime. Hey, considering how vital music has been to my existence, I get it. But holy cow, does a lot of Red not stick.
As stated, half of "The Greatest Man That Ever Lived (Variations on a Shaker Hymn)" is embarrassing. And, oh yeah, Cuomo gives tracks 7, 8, and 9 on this 10 track album to his bandmates to lead...and there's a reason Cuomo is the frontman. None of these three songs, which compromise 30% of Red, if you need the math done, are so bad they'll make your ears bleed (Patrick Wilson, the drummer, brings the best here on track 9, "Automatic"). But...they're not great, and they ensure any sense of cohesion Red could have achieved is rendered stillborn (it also doesn't helped that the band members switched instruments on several of these songs...Cuomo plays the drums on tracks 7 and 9, for instance).
By the time these songs are over, Cuomo's nearly seven-minute closer, "The Angel and the One," rolls through, Red is so all over the place, all of the insanity actually cancels itself out and makes the entire album one big nothing burger, which is an expression I've never loved, since burgers are incredible, though I guess if you were saying "nothing burger" and referencing a dried out Sysco patty and bun with nothing on it, it fits, and this sentence in all of its unglory is Red in a nutshell. Also, there is a weird "I'm a sex bomb" swagger underlying several of the songs that fits Weezer like Texas de Brazil fits a vegan retreat.
Back in 2008, I worked full time at the library, spending half my shift out on the floor, and the other in the AV office. I really believe that library was the coolest work environment I've ever been a part of, and my co-workers were the coolest people I've ever worked with. However, near the end of my tenure there, they somehow found the one person who wasn't cool, and put them in charge of the AV room. After Red was released, there was one day they played it on a loop. I must have heard Red eight times that day. When I got home, the only songs I could remember were "Pork and Beans" and "Troublemaker." I think that says it all.
2008 DGC/Interscope
1. Troublemaker 2:44
2. The Greatest Man That Ever Lived (Variations on a Shaker Hymn)
5:52
3. Pork and Beans 3:09
4. Heart Songs 4:06
5. Everybody Get Dangerous 4:03
6. Dreamin' 5:12
7. Thought I Knew 3:01
8. Cold Dark World 3:51
9. Automatic 3:07
10. The Angel and the One 6:46
Back in 2008, I worked full time at the library, spending half my shift out on the floor, and the other in the AV office. I really believe that library was the coolest work environment I've ever been a part of, and my co-workers were the coolest people I've ever worked with. However, near the end of my tenure there, they somehow found the one person who wasn't cool, and put them in charge of the AV room. After Red was released, there was one day they played it on a loop. I must have heard Red eight times that day. When I got home, the only songs I could remember were "Pork and Beans" and "Troublemaker." I think that says it all.
2008 DGC/Interscope
1. Troublemaker 2:44
2. The Greatest Man That Ever Lived (Variations on a Shaker Hymn)
5:52
3. Pork and Beans 3:09
4. Heart Songs 4:06
5. Everybody Get Dangerous 4:03
6. Dreamin' 5:12
7. Thought I Knew 3:01
8. Cold Dark World 3:51
9. Automatic 3:07
10. The Angel and the One 6:46
Comments