Saturday, December 5, 2015
Following the failure of Pinkerton, Rivers Cuomo spent half a decade smothering one of the brightest pop songwriting muses of our time. After some early indicators, the first real product of this process was 2001’s Green Album, a 28-minute-thin slice of early Beatles songcraft sieved through the compression filter of safe, formulaic late ’90s radio rock. “Photograph” is the […]
“Cue the feedback?” “Cue the feedback.” So goes the dialogue that begins “Do You Wanna Get High?” It’s a detail that’s so far eluded discussions of Weezer’s latest single, but it might be the entire point. The cliched squall of amplifier feedback that follows this studio banter serves as a familiar preface for what is by far the […]
The way back has never been the way forward, for you or for me or for all the good folks we know in Weezer. Like people (they’re made of ’em, after all), bands need to grow, develop, evolve — and in Weezer’s case, you can hear the sweet sound of progress in tunes like “Run […]
“Undone — The Sweater Song” was the first Weezer song to capture the imagination of the alt-rock nation (and in 1994, it really did have enough of a set perimeter and population to be called a “nation”), but “Buddy Holly” was the first to make the band pop superstars. And though the infallible melody and […]
Writing about “Undone” is no mean task: not only is it the song that first broke Weezer into the mainstream, it’s also the most performed song in their entire career. I have doubts that Weezer has ever played a full setlist without playing this song — even in the doldrums of Rivers Cuomo’s audience-hating, early […]
During the mid-90s, Robert Pollard — frontman of the then-infallible Guided By Voices — turned out incredible pop songs at an unprecedented rate. He was as an elementary schoolteacher when considerable indie rock fame found him on the brink of his 40s, and, as he released scores and scores of songs per year, he had some […]
Pinkerton is, for the most part, an album composed of bitter, incendiary rockers (“Tired Of Sex,” “Getchoo,” “Why Bother”) and sad, contemplative slowburns (near everything else, including perennial b-sides like “Waiting On You” and “Devotion”). To that general rule, two of the album’s ten tracks are exceptions: the upbeat “El Scorcho,” which celebrates the dizzying excitement of a […]
Monday, September 8, 2008
It had been three years since anyone heard from Weezer. After 2001’s The Green Album and the following year’s Maladroit, both of which most die-hards had initially despised, the Early Album 5 demos were aborted, and for three years, virtually nothing seemed to be happening with the band at all. “Beverly Hills” was the single that ended the drought. As […]
Speaking of Homie, Rivers Cuomo introduced “Think About You” from the same show they played “Hot Tub” by comparing the opening riff to the Sesame Street theme song. The audience laughed, Fred Eltringham counted off the song, and indeed the opening chord progression bore a striking resemblance — but it wouldn’t be the last time […]
“Island in the Sun” is the most released song of Weezer’s career. Too released. More released than any one song ever should be. To wit: THE (MAYBE IN)COMPLETE “ISLAND IN THE SUN” DISCOGRAPHY The Green Album (2001) Radio-only promo CD (2001) UK retail CD single #1 (2001; with “Island in the Sun” music video CD-ROM) […]