Sunday, November 8th, 2009
By DJ Sulky Smooth
Record Review: Weezer Continues to Disappoint Fans With Raditude
By DJ Sulky Smooth
Raditude was named by Rainn Wilson of The Office
Raditude is a pop album. Accept that and realize that Weezer is not the band it once was and never will be, and the album can be enjoyable. Unfortunately, I cannot do this.
Rivers Cuomo must have a problem letting the past go. I’m convinced of it. Weezer’s 1997 album Pinkerton was originally met with criticism yet is a fantastic album, but ever since then Weezer has not released an album near the caliber of Pinkerton or their debut: the self-titled Blue Album. After negative reviews of Pinkerton, Cuomo publicly denounced the album and claimed that he never liked it.
I call shenanigans Rivers. You took a new artistic aim with Pinkerton and while not immediately appreciated, you crafted a fine album. Yet you let some initial criticism, which may I point out turned into praise as the album has a huge cult following, destroy your abilities as a song writer. Your self-loathing destroyed a beautiful and witty musical mind. In the years between the release of Pinkerton and the Green Album you got scared. You never wanted to be criticized again, so you began to write safe and simple songs. Gone were the days of fun, nonsensical, and nerdy lyrics. Gone were the days of creative instrumentals and stylistic songs such as “El Scorcho” and “Say It Ain’t So.”
With the release of the Green Album, Rivers teased fans with the track “Hash Pipe,” a true return to form of the Blue Album and Pinkerton. With Maladroit, Weezer’s next album, the track “Dope Nose” also seemed reminiscent of old Weezer. The rest of the tracks on both of these albums were uninspired musically and lyrically and seemed formulaic as they all related to heartbreak or relationships. Then Make Believe was released. While I personally like some of the tracks on the album on an aesthetic level, it is purely a pop album. No “Geek Rock” songs were present on this LP and Rivers showed he was perfectly content with cutting all ties to the Weezer sound of old.
Then Weezer released the Red Album. By far their weakest effort thus far. Weezer fans don’t want to hear social commentaries or love stories in your songs like the first single from the album, “Pork and Beans.” We want to hear about your awkward attractions to Japanese girls, how you’re tired of failed relationships and would rather to masturbation, how you fall in love with girls who are lesbians, how you’re going to take your surfboard to work, having your sweater come undone, or a truly inspired instrumental opus such as “Only In Dreams.” The Red Album was similar to Make Believe with respect to lacking “old” Weezer content, except none of the songs were even remotely catchy.
Prior to listening Raditude I had an open mind. I was overly wishful that it would recapture even a sliver of that sound and style of old that fans so direly crave. Nope. No way. Rivers made another uninspired album singing about hackneyed relationship situations and making social commentaries that nobody wants to hear about.
Not one song on Raditude is high caliber. Not a single one. Sure the first half of the album can be catchy. Catchy in the same way that anything in the Top 40 music charts can be catchy. Catchy in the same way that Make Believe was catchy. If you can take the album at face value, a pop album crafted purely for volume sales that has no traces of Weezer’s style from Blue or Pinkerton, then Raditude may be an album for you.
Nothing on Raditude is even faintly reminiscent of Pinkerton or the Blue Album. The thing that bothers me most is that I think Rivers knows this. I saw the band perform in Hartford, CT a few months ago and prior to playing the first single off of Raditude, “(If You’re Wondering) I Want You To,” Rivers prefaced it by saying “Time to torture you guys with a new song.”
At least Weezer tried to differentiate some of their songs on Raditude, even if they failed. “Can’t Stop Partying” features Lil’ Wayne and “Love Is The Answer” sounds like a song by an Indian version of the band Guster. Beyond that, there is nothing notable on Raditude, just empty love and pop songs with poor instrumentals, elementary lyricism, and lack of emotion in vocals.
I’ve given up on ever hearing a new Weezer album that returns to the form of Pinkerton or the Blue Album. Raditude was the nail in the coffin for me. Rivers may be admitting it in the song “Put Me Back Together” as he sings “Here, it’s clear, that I’m not getting better.”
Maybe I should have been a tombstone for Halloween, one inscribed with “Here Lies Rivers Cuomo’s creative talent.”
Monday, 25 January, 2010 at 20:10
Man, you’re right. Rivers should totally start being original again. I agree, Sulky Smooth.
Are you kidding me? When did it become cool to “give respect” to the blue album and Pinkerton? When did these albums become something beyond pop? Where did all of you frauds come from, claiming to be Weezer fans “from back in the day” while you trash all but their first two albums?
I don’t know where idiots like you learned this code but it’s all wrong. The first two albums are pop albums. Every song Rivers has ever written, and there must be almost 200 available web demos by now, has been a pop song. Say it ain’t so is about beer and its about as “catchy” as a song could be. How is that any more “geek rock” than “everybody get dangerous”? Seriously?
Almost all of his songs, as almost all all songs, are about heartbreak, girls, and the like. There is no reason to make the same album twice. The albums are separate and unique attempts to capture a current mood of musical expression within pop culture. Pinkerton was a collection of ten pop songs, just like all the other albums, but somehow it’s an underground success because of the grundge inspired distorted chords, making it sound like a garage band album, which is also a big feature of Maladroit.
Your argument makes no sense. It’s catchy, but its not as good as the first two albums, which were catchy, but in a “special Weezer way!” What are you all talking about? Weezer is a pop band. They always have been. They celebrate pop music and culture and make fun of it and themselves at the same time, with every single record. If you don’t like them, that’s fine, but stop spouting nonsense about them in your reviews from a fan perspective! You’re not smart enough to get it!