I would just like to make it clear that, contrary to my dour outlook and appearance, I am not adverse to having a good time; some of my favourite times have involved having a good time. So I am not necessarily going to unload the scatter cannon straight away at Weezer’s eponymous ‘Weezer’ just because it is whimsical. If it is humourless whimsy and rubbish tunes, however, prepare for a shredding… actually, it’s okay. I might save the big guns for something else – is J***** H****** due to release anything soon?
‘Weezer,’ also known as ‘The Red Album’ comes three years after the mixed reception of ‘Make Believe’ and fourteen years after the catchy nostagiathon ‘Buddy Holly’… and they’re still doing a similar sort of schtick – awkward chuggy pop-punk anthems with adolescent geeky vocals and structures as rigid, rugged and predictable as a set of Bauhausian building blocks. ‘Trouble Maker’ is out of the box stuff: late nineties fun metal of a Bowling For Soup/Blink 182 variety with a very basic chug riff, a catchy chorus that is as predictable as it is eponymous but with a tongue so deep in the cheek that it is clear that they do not take themselves seriously so why the hell should you? There is a lot of this on the album: brainless fun that is good single material. ‘Pork and Beans,’ their first single in fact, is another in this category. An amiable quiet-loud anthem that mocks itself (“Timbaland knows the way to reach the top of the chart/maybe if I worked with him I’d learn the art.”) whilst playing up to their cult status. Now if the album did just this sort of song, you could easily dismiss it as blah blah blah; fortunately, there are moments of more complex whimsy.
Take ‘Heart Songs’: on the outside a simple slushy three chord power ballad telling of a band’s rise to ahem, greatness inspired by the mighty Nirvana. The build to this, however, is hilariously un-rock n roll – Rik Astley, Debbie Gibson and the Fresh Prince all get a name check – and delivered with such straight faced seriousness, intoned if you will, over an acoustic. Pure Tenacious D, for sure, but less abrasive. This is followed by the ‘ooh, I’m so wild,’ ‘Everbody Get Dangerous’ a before and after prank cautionary – only the caution is: what do you say to your kids when they do the same. Even the ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ ending feels like a subtle jibe at rich-kid rockers Rolling Stones. ‘Dreamin’ hoots along nicely too, has about five words but goes all epic when you least expect it, stringing those few words out to the point of the ridiculous. Very silly indeed.
There are some serious moments, but these are usually played up and not entirely successful. ‘Thought I Knew’ is a sort of apology that starts all handclaps and guitars, like a Flight of the Conchords number, but degenerates into gloom and throw away predictability. Better is ‘The Angel and the One,’ which opens with the terrible realisation that “It’s not my destiny to be the one that you will live with,” but builds in optimism to the point that the protagonist no longer sees themselves as a victim of unrequited love – more of the narked nerd. ‘Cold Dark World’, however, is so out of character that it could either jar or refresh, depending on your mood – harder, raunchier (“angel girl in a cold dark world/I’m gonna be your man”) and with a ‘Kashmir’ beat. Nothing too taxing on the old formula front.
For me, though, the best song is probably ‘The Greatest Man That Ever Lived’. Based on a Shaker hymn and absurdly overblown, every genre is thrown at this song: prog, metal, rap, psychedelia… all rolled out like party tricks. The whole thing mocks the pompous grandeur of ‘Jesus Of Suburbia’, completely failing to justify itself and caring so much less, ending with the philosophy “if you don’t like it, you can shove it/but you don’t like it, you love it.” Stupid and loveable, epic and hymnal but self-consciously pompous – what’s not to love?
Admittedly, this album is horrendously predictable and will win no new music awards unless every single other recording is destroyed and our minds are wiped; even then, it would be close call. But it is loveable, friendly, undemanding and catchy. They’re still doing ‘Buddy Holly’ after fourteen years, but if the shit fits…
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