(Weezer Red) 'Tis a Gift

Is there anything more fun to listen to right now than Rivers Cuomo turning 'Simple Gifts' on its head?

Instead of:

'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free

He sings with full-throated, bathroom mirror glee:

I am the greatest man that ever lived...

Elder Joseph would've been proud.

(Okay, probably not.)

Make Believe

But this rough magic
I here abjure, and,
when I have required
Some heavenly music,
which even now I do,
To work mine end upon
their senses that
This airy charm is for,
I'll break my staff,
Bury it certain fathoms
in the earth,
And deeper than did
ever plummet sound
I'll drown my book.

So does Prospero, in the final act of The Tempest, abandon himself to the course of nature, over which he had enjoyed an unholy command. Weezer prints this abdication on the final page of the booklet for Make Believe, which would seem to subvert the album's title. The band finally takes ownership of the mélange of styles that has always formed the bedrock of their albums. No more conjuring of rock legends and pop schtick, it would seem, and no more would it be appropriate for a critic to endlessly list all the references and tributes.

This is just Weezer, and the music, which always could, speaks for itself. There are a couple of firsts: the first use of a ukulele on "Hold On" and the first use of rhythym piano on "Perfect Situation", to name two. There's also a spectacular use of synthesizer in "This Is Such a Pity". The knee-jerk reaction is to crack up and think the guys are just sending up bygone arena rock, but it doesn't take long to realize that the gesture is genuine, and with their inimitable aplomb, they deftly insert a guitar breakdown that wouldn't be out of place in a spaghetti western.

The real excitement of the album is to hear Weezer move into new terrain with equal grace. The verses of "Other Way" have no analogue in their songbook, nor does the ambling, earnest "Freak Me Out".

Even the debut single, "Beverly Hills" certainly seems like a typical Weezer gag, and as silly as the lyrics are, when taken in the context of the album, it's clear that Rivers is quite serious. The song actually is a functioning thesis for the album as it moves from a fantasy about house maids who clean floors with spectacular attention to detail to the realization that such a life could never exist for Rivers who concludes, "I might as well enjoy my life/and watch the stars play", which calls to mind Prospero's epilogue:

Now my charms are all o'erthrown,
And what strength I have's mine own

Maladroit

[< French maladroit clumsy (1538 in Middle French), tactless (1642) < mal- MAL- + adroit ADROIT a. Cf. slightly earlier MALADROITLY adv.]

Lacking in adroitness or dexterity; awkward, bungling, clumsy, inept.



Though it's none of those things entirely, while managing to be most of them at one point or another, Maladroit sounds like a vault-clearer. There's supposed to be a Prince-like repository of unreleased Weezer tracks, and the album seems to be the first issuance of those lower grade songs. Each track has at least one fantastic idea, and sometimes that's it.

"Dope Nose" is the only thoroughly built song. There's a classic funky Weezer riff and faux-gangster lyric.

"Take Control" has a fantastic riff and a nice chorus but the two aren't quite married together and then the guitar solo is so off that the whole song gets thrown into that bizarre head space where something is wrong but you can't put your finger on it, a la Magic Christian's movie editing gag.

"Slob" stands out as the most desperate song, but the lyrics are stunningly inarticulate by Rivers standards.

The closer, "December", starts off with a tip of the hat to the Who and then proceeds into one of Rivers' pseudo-hymns. Had it closed off a more cyclical record it would certainly have been more impactful, but it, like the other songs on the album, stands awkwardly on its own, not quite as strong as the rest of Weezer's catalogue but well worth hearing.

Green

"Torniamo all antico, e sarà un progresso,"
Reads the caption to the concert photo that comprises the inside jacket for Weezer's third album. At first glance, it might seem like Rivers simply tossed off his Puccini jones for Verdi, given that the line is attributed to him, but the translation puts the lie to any such overwrought reading: "Let us return to old times, and that will be progress."

Five years after Pinkerton, Weezer delivers Blue Redux. With 28 minutes of music as sly and finely crafted as their debut, Green put them squarely back in the public eye, and aside from Elvis' comeback special, I can't think of a dirtier, funkier return to the limelight than "Hash Pipe". The syncopated grunt that Rivers doubles on guitar before every verse is a compact reminder of the breadth of his diminutive metal god stature.

The album hits most of the style points of its predecessor, with the Jonas-style, urgent, desperate rocker "Crab", and quasi-hymn "Smile", while the second verse of "Photograph" provides the mot juste for the entire album:

If you need it
You should show it
Cuz you might play so monastic
That you blow it

The song is another catchy, off-kilter construction where the miniscule verse leads to a bridge which sounds like a chorus, and the chorus sure seems like the bridge. Such devotion to a convention-tweaking inner voice calls to mind the visual from their best Spike Jonze video (their first), where Rivers steps up to the mic but he is two feet to the right of it, close enough to make you have to look twice.

Blue

With a new Weezer album due shortly, a look back at the four previous ones only seems appropriate.

In the pantheon of First Songs On First Albums, along with "Welcome to the Jungle" and "Good Times Bad Times", "My Name Is Jonas" deserves some shelf room. It's a thunderous assault that also perfectly promulgates Rivers' aesthetic.

"The World Has Turned and Left Me Here" is a hymn that foreshadows the most controversial Weezer song with its lyric:

I just made love
with your sweet memory
1,000 times in my head

Obsession and absence figure heavily in the motherload that is to come with Pinkerton, but on the Blue Album, everything is contained within the comfy walls of irony.

The barest emotional moment comes in "Say It Ain't So", but despite the first person lyrics, it feels like a story song. Though the sentiment is devastating, it doesn't feel like it's Rivers', especially when compared to "In the Garage" which is exactly the song you'd expect from a guy in a sweater and Buddy Holly glasses.

The twelve-sided die, the Kiss posters, the stupid words all fit the profile and spawned the concept of geek rock. Considering that their next album would spawn an even more formidable genre (to use an execrable shorthand), Weezer set the bar so high for themselves that it's little wonder they took such an enormous hiatus.