I made peace awhile ago in regards to what Weezer has become. Despite the diminishing returns of each album, they still have become masters in marketing themselves in ways that have nothing to do with their songs themselves (Exhibit A-Z: Snuggies!) Perhaps Weezer truly are the second coming of Kiss?
The pitch of style over substance was on display again this week. I saw the band's new single linked a few different places, but those mentioned were dwarfed drastically by news of the album's cover photo.
Delightful! Although Hurley was partial to another band, this photo couldn't be more joyous if he were fully decked out in a Mr. Cluck's uniform.
Will the album be good? Who knows? Probably not that good, but maybe kinda good! Does it matter? Not really! What matters is that I want LOST connections on all indie rock album covers from now on! So I took it upon myself to make several of them! Feel free to print these at and glue them to your CD covers. (That is a joke - nobody buys CDs. Please copy and past into your magical lower-left iTunes box to your heart's content.)
Was this good use of a couple hours on a Thursday? Or THE BEST use of a couple hours on a Thursday? You do the math.
By sheer coincidence, I spent my Sunday reconsidering Rivers Cuomo over two different forms of media. A chapter in Chuck Klosterman's Eating the Dinosaur posits that the reason Cuomo remains an enigma to this day is because he is literally incapable of writing with any viewpoint of irony, and his earnestness is perplexing to an audience that accepts irony far easier than sincerity. (Klosterman also charges Werner Herzog and Ralph Nader with similar afflictions.) This point seems to be more or less echoed by Cuomo himself in a remarkably reflective interview done for Chicago Public Radio's Sound Opinions. I can't recommend listening to this program enough. Not only does Cuomo tackle a set of impromptu songs while backed by Chicago riot grrrls The Cathy Santonis, but he also directly answers the charge that his songwriting has devolved into pandering schlock.
I've been racking my brain trying to come up with any band that's had a similar career trajectory to Weezer. Green Day is clearly the best parallel. Granted, they released a couple independent albums before Dookie, but they more or less mirror Weezer from the time each released major label debuts in 1994. Both bands' sophomore releases were initially seen as commercial disappointments (though Insomniac wasn't as critically reviled as Pinkerton.) Both spent the last few years of the 1990s fading toward obscurity, as Green Day put out two albums that few people outside myself bought, and it became accepted as fact that Weezer was likely done for good. And both have achieved a resurgence in album sales in the new millennium, becoming the types of bands who now play arenas in front of crowds populated mostly by fans who never listened to either band in 1994.
Of course Rivers Cuomo and Billie Joe Armstrong are viewed in completely different ways as songwriters. Armstrong has always been a rock star, who simply wrote songs as a means to continue being a rock star. Cuomo on the other hand is a song writer who has been spent his career getting used to the notion of becoming a rock star (especially in terms of stage presence, where Cuomo's evolution from shoegazing nebbish to spotlight star is similar to that of Michael Stipe in the 1980's.) The content of Armstrong's stories consists largely of obvious fiction, whereas every song Cuomo writes seems to be the newest chapter in an ongoing memoir. This is why you can hear "Wake Me Up When September Ends" and simply think, "Wow! What a shitty song!" Yet when you hear "Heart Songs" or "We Are All on Drugs," the first reaction is, "What is wrong with him? He can't possibly think this is a good song!"
While I'll allow that Cuomo's never-ending sincerity accounts for some aspects of the sea change in perception, it can't be seen as the only reason. In the Sound Opinions episode, Cuomo addresses the particulars of writing the epic turd that is "Beverly Hills." And when you hear his reasoning, it sounds like a perfectly acceptable method of writing a song ("I read something. I felt a particular way in that moment. I wrote from that fleeting point of view and accepted it as truth,") but it's only reasonable for someone who has JUST STARTED writing songs.
This is the key to Rivers Cuomo's songwriting. The man refuses to age. He's the Richard Alpert of bespectacled front men. The songs on Raditude are not necessarily worse than those on The Blue Album, because they're basically interchangeable inasmuch as every one of them could have been written within one random day by his life. As fans, this is what's troubling. The songs of The Blue Album and Pinkerton are ingrained within our coming of age, but I can't relate to the songs off Raditude any more than I can relate to the songs of Taylor Swift, as I am no longer a teenager, and both are writing songs from strictly a teenager's point of view. This is not to say the songs can't be enjoyed; it just means that enjoyment of Weezer in 2010 must come with an emotional detachment. In this respect, one can fully appreciate the catchiness of "(If You're Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To" in the same way one appreciates the catchiness of Lady Gaga.
Rivers Cuomo is playing the part of the freshmen girls in Dazed and Confused, and we as a people are communally playing Matthew McConaughey's character, Wooderson. We are getting older, and he is staying the same age. All right, all right, all right.
Weezer is about to release an album (their 3rd eponymous album - which completes the primary color trilogy - , but the first with a cowboy-hatted and mustachioed Rivers Cuomo), and the past three have beaten out of me all hope of their return to greatness. And then they decided to attempt the "Bohemian Rhapsody" of the 2000's.
It's called "The Greatest Man That Ever Lived (Variations on a Shaker Hymn)" (Rivers is so humble).
A Shaker hymn is a variation of a work/dance song called "Simple Gifts" from 1840's Maine (they knew how to rock). Many will recognize it as "Lord of the Dance" from Bible school.
HERE'S THE SONG (yes, I'm linking to Perezhilton...I don't know how to quit that either):
I took the liberty of identifying the various musical styles they breeze through about a dozen different takes on the classical melody.
Rivers is so cultured.
0:00 - 0:10 - live album 0:11 - 0:33 - 3rd grade piano recital 0:34 - 0:40 - an episode of COPS 0:35 - 1:25 - Limp Bizkit 1:26 - 1:51 - Jason Mraz (I admit I don't know if this actually sounds like Jason Mraz...he was just the 1st tool with a guitar that came to mind) 1:52 - 2:17 - military pledges of allegiance 2:18 - 2:43 - Al Green 2:44 - 3:07 - Blue Album-era Weezer:-) 3:08 - 3:33 - Muppet music video-era Weezer :-( 3:34 - 4:05 - The Rentals 4:06 - 4:37 - Shakespearean "Beverly Hills"-era Weezer 4:38 - 5:10 - Rockapella as a church choir 5:11 - 5:48 - back to Blue album-era Weezer!!
And somehow, this recipe spells musical genius. At least that's what my 17-year-old soul that's stuck in 1997 tells me.
Today, I've three little nuggets of interweb music video goodness for you.
Justice- DVNO
I've already sung the praises of Justice in last year's best of '07 blog, and this video is already on my best of '08 list. Their video illustrator, So Me, incorporates all of those futuristic 80's television tags. You'll have flashbacks to HBO, MacGyver, and Reading Rainbow intros. What could be better?!
Rivers Cuomo - Lover In the Snow
Cuomo released a solo album of demos this summer, sort of a warm-up to the inevitably disappointing album Weezer is gonna put out in June. The video starts out with Rivers narrating his journey to becoming obsessed with soccer, then the song kicks in (the best song on the album) with a soccer workout montage (not unlike this), ultimately leading to him lengthening his leg in a drastic surgery, traveling the globe attending the past decade of World Cups, and scoring the first goal in a charity celebrity soccer game. He jumps on trampolines. He does Japanese stretches. He dribbles in the rain. Oh, and he's going through a mustache phase. Also, if interested, Cuomo is using youtube to write a song, with the help of anyone willing. I believe they're at step #6, lyrics, so join the fun/weirdness here.
Young at Heart - Fix You
You might want to grab the tissues for this one. I recently heard about this documentary, just released in New York, that follows a 25 member singing troupe as they rehearse for a new show. They're from New England, and have played all over over the world. Oh, and their average age is 80. Oh, and the songs they sing come from the catalogs of the Ramones, James Brown, the Clash, and Outkast. Here's the trailer. The film is being praised as heartwarming and heartbreaking all at once.
The trailer shows the heartwarming part, but this clip is heartbreaking side of the film. It features Fred Knittle, a survivor of congestive heart failure (you can hear his oxygen tank breathing for him as he sings) covering Coldplay's Fix You. The killer - it was supposed to be a duet. His singing partner, Bob Salvini, died of a heart attack days before the performance. Chris Martin has nothing on Fred Knittle.
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