Crash-Course, No. 8: Weezer, A Franchise

Just off the beaten path, yet still familiar.

Personal
Both my wife and I liked well enough that they became a way to call “truce” to end a fight over which CD to play next. We never really ventured beyond Blue and Green (the Albums). I bought my wife Pinkerton for _____________ (birthday? Christmas? anniversary?), but she never really listened to it. I lost interest in the one song at a time since.

Band Bio
I don’t think anyone would argue if you called Weezer the vehicle for Rivers Cuomo’s songwriting; I’d dub his playing credits as guitar/vox/spirit animal. Cuomo bounced around a few bands (Avant Garde, Zoom, Fuzz) before bumping into Patrick Wilson (drums) and cohabitating with him and Matt Sharp, the band’s original bassist. Given that Weezer has fronted their albums with photos of themselves (did anyone else’s mom collect their succession of school photos in the same frame so you can walk through the years?), it’s incredible (no, really) that I missed the fact they’re now on their third bassist: it’s been Scott Shriner since 2001, with Mikey Welsh pitch-bassing on the Green Album. Brian Bell is the other guy, guitar/backing vox/keys. Oh, and the other members pick up projects of their own (e.g., Special Goodness, Space Twins, Rentals; Homie ) whenever Cuomo freaks out and paints his room black and puts insulation all over the windows to keep out the light.

Fun Details
The main thing I wanted to know going into “Weezer Week” was the love/hate tension that surrounded their second album, Pinkerton. The short answer: confessional meets creepy meets misogynistic, but it all panned out in the end(?); even Cuomo admitted he never wanted songs from the album heard or played again. I don’t think much of the album – I barely liked “El Scorcho,” and can’t remember the rest – but I also think art needs to be confessional, even when it’s creepy and, no matter how much I cringe through it, misogynistic. To borrow a favorite thought from Fred Rogers, if it can be mentioned, it can be managed.

Weezer opened for Dogstar, Keanu Reeves’ band, for their first show. They blew up following their debut (Blue) and the pressure of the follow up, combined with surgery to lengthen Cuomo’s leg and depressive isolation, explains why Pinkerton was so raw. The Green Album put River’s demons back in their cages, a sort of offering to their fans when they came back from hiatus. They tapped into technology/primal social media for Maladroit by letting fans download the mixes for Maladroit and giving feedback (“…the band said that this process was something of a failure, as the fans did not supply the group with coherent, constructive advice.” “Slob,” the worst song on the album, demonstrates the benefit of songwriting by (entitled) committee). Also of note:

“Weezer has sold 10.2 million albums in the US and over 35 million worldwide.”

In tipsy...uncharitable moment, I translated that as follows: “It sums them up: commercially successful, but largely unmemorable.” Related, it's a statement of some kind that they willingly rephrased "We're All on Drugs" to "We're All in Love" because someone asked them to.

The global hive-mind likes Weezer more than I do, and that’s fine. They’ve given them 25+ years as professional musicians. They put out two albums in 2019 – the Teal Album, a collection of covers (thus immediately forgettable), and the Black Album. They worked with Dave Sitek from TV on the Radio on the latter, and I give him/them credit for playing around with different sounds and instrumentation. Since it’s new, I rummaged around the ‘net for reviews of the Black Album and found a few (e.g., theneedledrop, Rolling Stone and Pitchfork). After a week of listening to Weezer, I got the most out of A.V. Club’s review, not least for including this passage:

“Cuomo and company are at the point where even their throwaway larks, like that surprise covers album of ’80s and ’90s songs, are scrutinized for signs of how or why Rivers intends to torture those who love the 1994 Blue Album most of all.”

I find that equal parts ironic and accurate for reasons I’ll get into below, but the Black Album still feels like Weezer, and basically sounds like them. I only kept one song from the Black Album on the playlist – “California Snow” – and that one got knocked pretty hard across all those reviews, so…

Last Words After a Week of ‘Em
Because I didn’t want to spread myself too thin, I focused on Pinkerton, Maladroit and the Black Album. If I had to call one of Weezer’s albums their best right now, I’d go with Maladroit for its thicker production (“American Gigolo”), doing a handful of hooks a little better (“Dope Nose”; good video, btw), and for the odd curveball (“Burndt Jamb”). It’s not a big curve. Based on those three, and what I already know from the Blue and Green Albums, the essential experience of listening to them boils down to waiting for them to be their “best possible Weezer” – i.e., to land the rock-kick moments (e.g., “Hash Pipe”) to pull off the clever turn of phrase that’s not too clever.

That’s where Weezer lost me originally and loses me still. They resort too readily to cute or quirky phrasing (ahem!) – e.g., using the verb “moonwalk” in the Black Album’s “Byzantine,” or the line about "your sick dance moves" instead of something more meaningful, or even ordinary. In general, I fault them for building a career around talking over sincerity. Then again, Pinkerton…

For what it’s worth, I’m told the Red Album is their most experimental, while the White Album is their best for their “new sound” (which, at time of writing, includes only that and the Black Album). Ultimately, I believe Weezer enjoys success for the same reason…let’s go with Dairy Queen does: they give their audience what they expect, and therefore want, but without playing in the same markets as, say, McDonald’s.

And that could explain why their fans tend to mutiny when they don’t get what they expect.