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…)
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SOUNDTRACK: KING’S X: Dogman (1994).
Dogman follows up King’s X with, to my mind, a much more satisfying collection. It starts of with the fantastic “Dogman,” a great chance for Doug to show off his vocal range. “Shoes” has some great gospelish harmonies that lead to a wonderfully chunky riff. And “Pretend” sounds about as close to early King’s X as this newish King’s X gets: soaring harmonies and a great guitar line. “Black the Sky” brings back some of those dissonant chords that Ty does so well and it all wraps up in a gorgeous, heavy chorus. And a song like “Sunshine Rain” has the effect of sounding like the older King’s X harmonies with a difference: it’s more of a minor key harmony. It’s really beautiful.
SOUNDTRACK: MIKE FORD: Satellite Hotstove (2007).
SOUNDTRACK: THE FRATELLIS-Here We Stand (2008).
I was thinking about the parallel careers of R.E.M. and U2 the other day. The both started at around the same time: R.E.M. on an indie label and U2 on a major. R.E.M. was a college band loved by critics but not really a big seller. U2 had some huge hits in their early days and slowly grew to be college darlings too. Then in 1987, they both hit it big time: R.E.M.’s Document had “It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” and “One I Love” and of course, U2’s The Joshua Tree was the hugest album in the world.
I Just Read About That... 