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 […]
Monday, December 20, 2010
For my money, “Buttefly” might very well be the best thing Rivers Cuomo’s ever done. I usually vacillate between this one and “Only in Dreams” as Weezer’s definitive moment (and sometimes the defiantly great Red era outtake “Pig,” even), and at 8 minutes, “Dreams” has a bit of an inherent advantage — it is conspicuously […]
“Slob” has had a pretty interesting life, for a Weezer song. The tune was debuted during the Summer Songs 2000 tour, which found it sticking out in the memory of fans as a rare slab of raw emotion in a batch of Rivers Cuomo’s least personal songs to date. Truth be told, the semi-officially released […]
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 […]
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 […]
…And in the opposite corner, we have The Green Album. Whereas a gloriously on-edge, unhinged performance like “Getchoo” highlights exactly why Pinkerton is so satisfying even a dozen years on, by 2001 Rivers Cuomo had changed directions. In his mind, that approach now represented the sophomore slump, his biggest commercial failure; while many would be […]
“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) […]
“Burndt Jamb” is, without question, one of Maladroit’s finest tunes. It’s got a summery jazz-funk groove to it, the likes of which the band has seldom attempted prior or since. Rivers’ lyric, while simple, is decently effective, contrasting the bright pop milieu against some humdrum mopery. It’s essentially three brief verses, the first of which referencing “gothic […]
With a sudden onslaught of poppy, distorted guitars, a rush of lyrics about love and loneliness, and some truly fantastic falsetto harmonies provided by bassist Matt Sharp, this track embodies all that is great about Blue Album-era Weezer. Rivers Cuomo’s lyric is one of the most cleverly understated of his career, as he pines, “I […]