Hot on the heels of “Sheila Can Do (It)” comes another artifact from Rivers Cuomo’s unfinished 1997 sideproject, the Boston-based alt.country of Homie. While many of those songs were old demos and scrapped song ideas that Cuomo was repurposing, this one, “Autumn in Jayne” (a.k.a. “Autumn Jane,” a.k.a. “Autumn and Jane” — both of which […]
“Devotion” is, without question, the single most depressing song Rivers Cuomo has ever written. That’s no small claim, especially considering the Pinkerton era from whence it came. The song is a b-side to the “El Scorcho” single and, like most Weezer b-sides, is fantastic: most all of the ones we’ve heard are as good if […]
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 […]
When I wrote about Red Album deluxe track/outtake “Miss Sweeney” I spoke of the euphoria of hearing a classic Weezer track so deep into the new millennium, and the band’s new arena rock/radio pop M.O. But “Sweeney” is far from the first post-Y2K sign of life. Perhaps the brightest beacon in memory came April 9, […]
Thursday, February 5, 2009
If you haven’t noticed, I’ve put off writing this one for quite a while now. When it came up in the song randomizer, I knew there would be trouble. “Longtime Sunshine” is just one of those songs that is a real pain to do justice (ahem). In fact, I’m not quite sure it can be […]
I’ve always found it funny how Green Day has played such a large (if largely unrecognized) role in the lore of Weezer. Most blatant is Rivers Cuomo’s choice to namecheck the band in the second verse of “El Scorcho” — “I asked you to go to the Green Day concert / You said you never […]
Where to begin? “Only In Dreams” isn’t one of the best Weezer songs so much as it is one of the best songs. It contains what is, in my opinion, one of the greatest passages of guitar work in the history of music. It is, in many ways, the perfect synthesis of the young Rivers […]
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 […]
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Imagine my surprise when, in researching the previous post, I found out that Rivers Cuomo called “Beverly Hills” and “Falling For You” – two diametrically opposed pop songs – his two proudest musical achievements. Then imagine my surprise when, after “Beverly Hills,” the very next song to come up in the TVS randomizer was…”Falling For You.” Cuomo […]
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Like Hamlet is a young man’s play, Pinkerton is a young man’s album. Surely anyone can appreciate either (and at any age), but there’s a very hormonal, angsty, testosterone-motivated facet to both (at their respective cores, even), and at least in Pinkerton‘s case, that the vast majority of its acolytes are male and discovered it during their teens is […]