SOUNDTRACK: WEEZER-Weezer (Red Album) (2008).
So hooked was I by the video for “Buddy Holly” that there was little chance of me ever disliking Weezer. When Pinkerton came out, it quickly became one of my favorite records. “Pink Triangle” is such a great song about unrequited love for a lesbian. And of course, “El Scorcho” is a wonderfully off-kilter single. Since then, Weezer have put out a bunch of albums, some with titles and some without. This is their 3rd record called Weezer, but it’s the Red Album because its cover is red (duh).
I know that many people can’t stand Weezer (or at least couldn’t back the last time I bothered to check what the pop culture world was thinking…although I think they may be cool now). They have an uncanny sense of pop melody even when their songs are weird or funny or even seemingly out of tune. I think that’s why I like them so much, because their songs sometimes start out of tune and the ultimately wind up being super catchy. I also like them because Rivers Cuomo went back to Harvard to get his degree in English (one wonders of course, why he chooses to write such pedestrian rhymes, but that’s another story altogether), and because he’s a geek in general.
No doubt you’ve heard at least one Weezer song, and you’d be living under a rock if you haven’t heard their new, ubiquitous single “Pork and Beans.” And “Pork and Beans” is as good a place to start as any. It’s got fairly heavy guitars, it’s catchy as all get out, it’s rather anti-authority, and parts of it don’t make any sense…that’s Weezer for you.
This record is pretty strong overall. The first 5 songs are pretty standard Weezer. There’s a really heavy start song, a sentimental song “Heart Songs” which name checks some of Rivers’ favorite songs growing up, and what has become my favorite song on the record: “The Greatest Man that Ever Lived.” This is a long song (for Weezer) at nearly six minutes. What’s cool about it is that every verse is done in a different style of music: there’s a metal verse, a choral verse, a spoken word verse etc. And the chorus is simple and wonderful. It could go on for twenty minutes and would still be great.
“Everybody Get Dangerous” is a weird song to me. It doesn’t quite sound right. It’s still catchy, but I think maybe saying the word dangerous makes a chorus sound weird. (How’s that for subjective?). Or, which is more likely, the verses are the catchy part and the chorus is the off-kilter section.
The second half of the record strikes a few firsts, in that the other members of the band sing lead vocals on a few tracks. Even though the songs are good (and when I heard “Automatic” on the radio the other day on WRXP, it sounded great by itself) there’s something off about them being on a Weezer record. I think maybe I associate Rivers’ voice with their style so much that any other voice just makes things seems askew. That said, the songs are good, they’re just not “Weezer.”
I have to get back to the lyrics though. Rivers is more about harmony and melody, I know, but sometimes those lyrics are so simple as to be almost a joke in themselves. Maybe that’s the point. (And as an English major myself, I secretly believe it is the point). After a few listens I stop cringing about the lyrics and I just start enjoying them.
The last song gives me some problems because it runs nearly seven minutes long. Obviously not a problem in itself, but the last two or two and a half minutes are just the song fading out, which…come on.
[DIGRESSION] I think I’m probably the only person who gets bothered by songs that fade out too long or songs that I think should be a minute shorter than they are. And I realized it’s because I have a limited time where I can listen to music carefully. And so when I do, I don’t want it wasted with silence or fade outs or final choruses that repeat sixteen times. On the other hand, if I just have music on in the background (which is how most people listen to music) you will hardly notice those extra 45 seconds. But when you’re in the car, and you know you’ll be at work in exactly 3 minutes, you don’t want 2 minutes of fade!
[READ: August 14, 2008] One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
My first real awareness of Solzhenitsyn actually comes from the Moxy Fruvous song “Johnny Saucep’n”:
Well he was just some Johnny Saucep’n when he walked into that kitchen.
And the chef picked up the order and put down his Solzhenitsyn (more…)
SOUNDTRACK: COHEED & CAMBRIA-In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3 (2003).
SOUNDTRACK: THE GO! TEAM-Thunder, Lightning , Strike (2004).
The Go! Team have a new album out and so I dug out their first to see if I liked it enough to check out the new one. This first one is such a weird album. It feels intensely like what I would call a joke album. There are cheesy horns, crazy samples of cheerleaders cheering, and hooks hooks hooks! It all sounds like the soundtrack to the best 70s action TV show that never existed. And yet the whole thing works so well. It is just so damned catchy. I listened to it about 3 times today and never got sick of it.
SOUNDTRACK: NED SUBLETTE: Cowboy Rumba (1999).
Typically I’m the one who introduces our house to new music. My wife has great taste, but she doesn’t typically seek out new stuff like I do. So, it was a nice surprise when she found this record. I think she heard about it on NPR. I was trying to figure out how best to describe the record, but really the title says it all. It is a country-tinged record that is primarily backed by horns in a “rumba” style (although Sublette admits in the liner notes that it’s not really a rumba). I’m not a big fan of country music, and I’m not a huge fan of South of the Border horn music (sambas, rumbas etc). However, Sarah and I took some ballroom dance classes, and my appreciation for these styles has really grown. We even requested one of these songs (“Feelin’ No Pain”) for our wedding reception.
SOUNDTRACK: THE KINKS are the Village Green Preservation Society (1968).
This record seems to be a very important record in the history of British pop rock and in the history of The Kinks. I feel that I had always heard about it in practically hushed tones (much like the hushed tones of the record), and yet I had never heard it. Finally, my friend Carrie gave me a copy of it and I listened and was surprised that I didn’t know one single song on it. You can look here and see that I have two Kinks greatest hits records, and not one song from this record is on any either of them.
For those keeping score: at lunch, I have been listening to all of my CDs in order. This process started several years ago and really bespeaks my growing insanity. I had long since finished the A-Z bands, and have moved onto soundtracks. So, yesterday’s lunch had the great pleasure of listening to the Little Mermaid, Lock Stock and Two Smocking Barrels and A Life Less Ordinary at lunch, while reading this book!)
I Just Read About That... 