Weezer - "The Red Album"

Please don't suck. Please don't suck. Please don't suck.

Maladroit is not completely terrible. There are a couple good tracks on it. It's just the lumps of mediocrity that surround the good that tend to color people's opinions of it. And to be honest, I liked the Green album.

All that said, Make Believe was just blah, and I'm not too optimistic of this one being any good either.

Weezer hasn't had anything great since Pinkerton, that much is true.

Personally, I've still found enough to like about each album that I'd still say I like them all. I think the band's just in that shitty position where their earlier stuff was so exceptionally good, it'd be almost impossible for anything they do after to measure up.

I just take what I get and rate it on it's own merits. The green album was vacuous fun, with two really good songs. Call me a consumer whore or whatever, but I like Hash Pipe and Island in the Sun the best on it. Maladroit was interestingly erratic, and Keep Fishin' is one of my favourite Weezer songs. It's one of those idiosyncratic little love songs of theirs that embodies a lot of what I like about the band. It may not be as intensely personal as most of their best stuff, but it's a return to that fun spirit that made Buddy Holly so great. I haven't spent too much time with Make Believe, but I did like what little I did so it gets a pass.

I'll back you up on Maladroit 100%. Make Believe, though, I can't stomach one bit of.

I'm looking forward to the new one with cautious optimism. I was a big Weezer nut until The Green Album. That nutiness certainly subsided after MB, but I can't help hiding my excitment over the fact that new Weezer is hitting soon.

The first single, "Pork and Beans," is on the web. Ripped from a radio station, but pretty OK quality.

Am I the only one who hopes the album is about communism?

Listening to "Pork and Beans", I already like this album more than Make Believe.

Link? Please?

ETA: Thanks Belmont!

After listening to the song, I've realized that weezer will never be as good as the Blue Album or Pinkerton ever again. I think Rivers is just too self-aware now. I mean, it's not terrible, it's just... not that good.

He needs his old hair cut.

I love the new single. It's weird and epic.

Edited to add: I mean "The greatest Man" not "Pork and Beans."

Pre-ordered on iTunes (as if there's a need), and just listened to "Pork and Beans." Not bad, for a first single.

No one else has listened to their new 6 minute long single?

This band sucks. They are terrible. At best, they write novelty tunes like that single about Beverly Hills, which managed to be merely irritating, except for that sample of a woman having an orgasm.

I haven't heard Weezer make anything interesting. And it's obvious that the sound of some chick pleading "Do me..." was a sample, because I'm sure Rivers Cuomo could never pleasure a woman. His band doesn't even warm the eardrums.

Why did anyone enjoy Weezer to begin with? I think that'd be a good thread topic. Because unless they were your introduction to 'indie' music, I don't see how anyone can enjoy them, except for nostalgia.

--Beverly Hills is a novelty tune?
--That was an orgasm?
--Have you heard any of their pre-Green Album songs? Serious question.

I haven't heard Rivers' solo album that came out a few months ago, is it any good or reminiscent of the old Weezer?

Trolling.

I remember hearing Longtime Sunshine years ago and immediately falling in love with it.

The video for "Pork and Beans". That's uh...a lot of memes. Oh look, another few seconds of exposure for Chris Crocker! But he's so shy!

That video's great... especially since I was largely unaware of all those memes until I saw the South Park episode last month.

Hey, Rivers, what's with the porn 'stache, though?

It's a catchy song, but the over-reliance on pop culture references and jokiness is really killing this band. It used to sound effortless and a natural outgrowth of their songs (the KISS and X-Men references in "In the Garage" made perfect sense in context; the name-drops in "Buddy Holly" are to icons, not flashes in the pan; and the Green Day mention in "El Scorcho" seems casual and natural). "Pork and Beans" sounds like Cuomo came up with the references first.

That said, dreary louse is way off. I didn't own a Weezer album until well after Pinkerton had been released (and probably over a decade after I'd started listening to more obscure music - in fact, I initially wrote off "The Sweater Song" as a Pavement ripoff), so it's definitely not nostalgia for me. Pinkerton's probably one of the best rock albums of the 90s. It's a big, blustery take on the Pixies at their poppiest, but with a direct, personal lyrical slant and more of a mind for bubblegum-catchy pop choruses. Like Big Star Third, it's a classic pop album that sounds uncomfortable with being a pop album, and part of the appeal is in hearing it try to break free (Third does so via silence and lethargy, Pinkerton does so via anxious energy and volume).

funny video. I too am kinda weary of all the pop references. I know Weezer can make great songs when they want to, I just hope this song isn't indicative of the entire album.

There's actually an interesting story about the single in the new Rolling Stone. Cuomo explains that the song came out of a meeting with the record company where the execs told him that the new album "needed a single". In fact, he explains that a lot of the jokey "pop" references where actually suggestions that the Board gave him about the needed single (hence, the Timbaland reference, for one). He was so pissed that he just crafted a song from their ridiculous advice.

That being said, I agree in the main with your post (although I also suspect I'm something of a Weezer apologist 'round these parts).

I read that, too. It would probably carry more weight as some kind of statement against the execs if it wasn't exactly what they wanted. Still, on the basis of the music, it's way better than "Beverly Hills," at least.

I don't even get how one can be an outright Weezer apologist or hater these days, since they're so erratic (although mostly not-so-hot these days, IMO). Some of their stuff is very, very good, and some of it's very, very bad.

I've determined that I'm a Weezer apologist premised upon the fact that I don't hate "Make Believe". It's no "Pinkerton" or "Blue Album", but I can listen to it and derive pleasure. Ergo, Weezer apologist.

I have to admit that I never made it past the singles to want to give Make Believe a chance.

I'm really loving the new songs a lot. "Heart Songs" and "Troublemaker" especially.

I don't see how one can be an apologist for music, because if you're in my car, you're gonna listen to what I fucking got on the radio, goddammit. Heh.

I can't blame you for that. By the time it gets to the guitar solo in "Beverly Hills" (a talk box? Are you fucking shitting me?) most sane people would give up. I kinda liked "This is Such a Pity" though; I can't explain why.

The video to Pork N' Beans is aces.

Cuomo's Youtube "Let's Write a Sawng" videos are pretty cool and funny, at least to my weird sense of humor. The song being put together could fit in The Green Album nicely. The latest version is at about the 1:39 mark of this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0gCqyVMIjc&feature=user

And I really dig both Maladroit and Make Believe. The latter has this weird vibe that can be either really sincere (The "You're my best friend and I love you" chorus in "My Best Friend") or ironic (The guitar solo in "Beverly Hills"). I like how Cuomos is purposefully trying to go with lean, simple, catchy lyrics. Check it out, DaveB, you might find it to be enjoyable.

"The Greatest Man That Ever Lived" is some kind of swaggering genius song. That line about a fine line between stupid and clever? That song rides that line like a stripper on a pole.

I'm a fan of Pinkerton and their first album, that's about it. Everything else felt like it was aping the concept of their first one - not just in eponyminity, but sonically. That said, there's a great number of singles from them that I really enjoy. A few years ago, they stopped being relevant and now they're just coasting on the skill they have at writing catchy pop songs. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with writing pop songs.

Say what you will about Weezer, but they're certainly not a bad band. They're just not very consistent.

Just had my first listen through of The Red Album and so far I'm liking it more than Make Believe but again, I'm being cautious. I liked its predecessor on the first few listens but it quickly wore on me. I really, really like "The Greatest Man That Ever Lived." Best song they've done in quite some time. "Heart Songs" also mightily impressed me. Really have to let the others soak in, but I hope this album gets me excited about Weezer again.

We're agreeing a lot lately.

All Weezers later albums have ever made me want to do is re-listen to Blue and Pinkerton personally.

Its a shame, I miss those guys whose live show rocked my world so many years ago....

I thought he was Sam Rockwell for a minute there.

He claims the stache is a tribute to his father. he grew it out after the birth of his daughter. Also, The Angel and the One is a great track.

I'm digging the hell out of this album.

I don't know if it's a good album, but they are trying and seem to be going out on a limb. For that I give them, especially Rivers, credit.

Really can't grasp what I think about it yet, I only have the 8 songs, need the other two. I can't stop listening to "Heart Songs" though. It's gotta be the most honest song Cuomo has written since the Pinkerton days. I love it.

I liked the pork tune. The video, however, sucked. It reminded me of all those "funny" movies like Epic Movie and Date Movie.

Weezer's like that relationship in high school that ended too soon. Afterwards you spent a lot of time romanticizing the girl and the relationship, which built the whole thing up in your mind. Then you run into the girl again in college and you get back together. That's when you realize it wasn't that great in the first place.

That being said, Tired of Sex is one tough song.

I really like Pork and Beans. I dont quite understand the outright hostility towards them. People take Weezer way too seriously. Still I'm in the minority here.

I think the hostility -- from me anyway -- comes from the genius that Weezer used to be. Blue is fantastic but Pinkerton is sheer genius, a flat-out masterpiece. After that, it seems the boys chose to shy away from their adult (and much superior) sides. Green was pretty good, Maladroit was catchy but hit-or-miss and Make Believe was an utter disaster. They were just going through the motions.

I don't mind their immature nature, only if they did it better. They've been repeating the same formula for years now, without adding anything fresh to it. That being said, I think The Red Album might be their best work since The Green Album. It's not mature, exactly, but put together well and fun and experimental and youthful. I have to give it another listen but I'm digging it so far.