Cry me a River(s) Weez deniers.

Review by Chad R

I only remember two things about the clunky grey Windows 95 PC my dad brought home about (gulp) twenty years ago. First, I remember Win-95 came preloaded with this amazing game called Hover! that absolutely blew my mind. I’ve discovered asking about Hover! is a good litmus test for confirming if someone is younger than 24. Second, I remember our windows media player only played two videos; this abomination, and  Weezer’s classic Buddy Holly. I must have replayed that Happy Days mashup thousands of of times until our Win95 succumbed to some virus from a bygone era. 

Fast forward a few years, and I was in the midst of awful prepubescent angst, perpetual funk, and head-pounding boredom. Thirteen or something me, sporting a stretched out ratty sweater, and forcibly donning wire spectacles,  was probably not a lot of fun to be around, nor to look at, I resembled an overweight, Sorceror’s stone era Harry Potter. One thing was certain though, at that moment in time, I and my closest male friends were really, really, really into Weezer. The crunching riffs and sorrowful subject matter, the way Rivers  telegraphed the  “loser” pathos so sincerely; I was always filled with hope that one day, the nerd could get the girl, after all, Cuomo seemed to have plenty of lady problems on each track; some time in the distant future, girls would dig the dorky.

I’d rank the first four Weezer albums I worshiped in those formative years at
[1] Pinkerton
[2] Weezer (Blue Album)
[3] Maladroit
[4] Weezer (Green Album)

But, WAIT you say, what about Make Believe, The Red Album, Raditude, Hurley, and Everything will be Alright in the End?

Not a single clue.  Perfect Situation made it on my iPod once or twice in high school. I heard murmurs and rumors of some very very bad things (Troublemaker) in college; I was told a pretty solid album buzzed under my radar in graduate school (Everything will be Alright). I think we can all agree Beverly Hills is guaranteed to be heard at any Applebee’s, anywhere.

The thing is, I didn’t grow disgusted, angry, or even bored with Weezer, I just shedded them from my consciousness all the while growing up to be a more confident, taller, but no less dorky, adult version of myself. Listening through the entire Weezography, you will find elements of what made old Weezer great interlaced throughout more or less all of their post 9-11 LPs. Lucky for me, their latest Weezer (White Album) sounds like it could have dropped right after Maladroit,  fished out of some terrible Bush years time capsule along with a HD-DVD copy of Crash. 

Kicking off with California Kids, Rivers quavering crooning and strong power chords takes me straight back to those long nights trapped in my childhood bedroom, denied the ability to even drive a car and get away from it all. In fact, I remember idealizing Southern California because so many great things could be reached on foot compared to North Texas.

Wind in Our Sail makes excellent use of the ivory keys,  with Weezer flexing their ability to appeal to a more mainstream listener and working in a nice metaphor about Sisyphus. On Thank God for Girls, Rivers, grownup me,  and past me couldn’t probably agree more, girls were an omnipresent theme in my development as I learned to cherish, hate, fear, and generally appreciate the female race as a constant source of happiness and inspiration.

Do You Wanna get High? alludes to another omnipresent presence in teenage life (and beyond) while Summer Elaine and Drunk Dori basks in the glow of an old relationship like opening up an ex lover’s Facebook feed. The album’s final two tracks, however, are by far the strongest, but for very different reasons.  Jacked Up is a masterful pop rock song, displaying the much more polished sound Rivers seems to have honed in on since his near tragic bus accident in 2009. Bummed Out  is a shoestring lullaby that nods and winks to the early days, channeling all the beachy vibes of 94’s Surf Wax America.

Given my gross negligence of Weezer the past decade, I have no right to say this is the best Weezer album. But I am fairly certain there are other millennials, like me, who have inadvertently ignored or forgot about Weezer. I am well fitted to say, there’s never been a better time to jump back into them.

What other rock phenomena from yesteryear are you neglecting? The Strokes?!?

Ughhhh….. yeah, you can go on ignoring them for the time being (….sigh….).

You can learn more about Weezer at Weezerpedia.com!