Thursday, November 27, 2008
“Crazy One” was perhaps the pleasantest surprise of Rivers Cuomo’s first-ever home demos compendium, Alone. Dated 1998, smack in the middle of that mysterious period of Weezer inactivity between Pinkerton‘s implosion (1997) and the band’s triumphant “reunion tour” (2000), “Crazy One” was tough to predict. 1997 was the year of Cuomo’s alt-country side-project Homie and experimental solo band […]
Monday, November 24, 2008
“Crab” is arguably the worst song on 2001’s The Green Album. As such, for a time many fans considered it the worst song Weezer had ever released. This impression outlasted its tenability (which expired by the next year’s Maladroit), though for most, Green‘s value has appreciated to a point where even its slightest cut is a fan favorite. Whatever Green lacks in […]
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
“The Weight” was written and recorded by The Band in 1968. It served as a modest debut hit, peaking at #63 on the US charts, but saw incremental success when covered by other artists. Jackie DeShannon took it to #55 that same year, Diana Ross & The Supremes collaborated with The Temptations to hit #46 […]
“Clarinet Waltz” is a real anomaly in the Weezer canon. It stands in the COR as the 15th song Rivers Cuomo wrote in 1994, after a remarkable stretch that began with “Tired of Sex,” “Susanne,” “Waiting On You” and “Getchoo,” included the highly desired and as-yet-unreleased Cuomo cover of the Beach Boys’ classic “Surfer Girl,” and […]
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 […]
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
This is one of the interstitial pieces from Songs From The Black Hole, a project previously discussed here in greater detail. Clocking in at around 44 seconds, it’s a short song more notable for its purpose in the rock opera’s story arc than it is for its musicality. Rivers Cuomo apparently found it integral to […]
Friday, September 12, 2008
In the fall of 2001, Weezer — fresh off a comeback with The Green Album, and having just replaced rehab room bassist Mikey Welsh with ex-Marine Scott Shriner — agreed to film a concert for HBO’s Reverb series. Funnily enough, it wound up being one of the shows the band did under their alter-ego, Goat Punishment […]
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 […]
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
In 2001, Weezer was poised for a comeback. The past year had been one of changes for the band, who had returned from three long, stagnant years to play their first “reunion” tour to rapturous applause and surprisingly sold-out audiences. These shows offered the debut both of a replacement bassist, Mikey Welsh, and of a […]
Monday, September 1, 2008
Recorded in the fall of 1992, this 47-second nugget didn’t see the light of day until the very end of 2007, on Rivers Cuomo’s solo demo compendium Alone. It is the sole a capella Cuomo song to see official release. The song, despite its obvious lack of lyrics or riffs, has its very own number in Cuomo’s Catalogue […]