Weezer - The Red Album

By this point, Weezer leader Rivers Cuomo should know that self-titling a record and slapping a solid color behind a photo of his band won’t bring black the Blue Album’s 1994 glory days, when songs like “Buddy Holly” and “Undone--The Sweater Song” pushed the band to the top of modern-rock radio as all the neo-grunge peddlers watched in envy.

He tried it with the Green Album in 2001, a valiant effort with some stand-out tracks (“Photograph,” “Hash Pipe”), but still not a classic on the level of ‘ole Blue. And now we’ve got the Red Album, the cover of which reveals a mustachioed Cuomo in a cowboy hat and big belt buckle alongside his bandmates. Despite the earnest expression on his face, it’s gotta be a joke, because the whole album is downright goofy. Cuomo’s obviously trying to have as much fun as possible with his music, a laudable goal. But the result is a lot like that cover image of Cuomo--both awesome and awful. And you can almost divide the awesome from the awful right down the middle of the 10-track record. Weezer showcases its knack for writing breezy, hooky songs on only the first four tracks, making the album as top heavy as a toddler.

The first single, “Pork and Beans,” is Weezer at its best, playful and consciously catchy, musically mixing the quirkiness “El Scorcho” with the big, power-pop guitars of “No One Else.” There’s a reason Cuomo sings, “Everyone likes to dance to a happy song/ with a catchy chorus and beat so they can sing along.” And the chorus--“I’ma do the things that I wanna do/ I ain’t got a thing to prove to you”--brazenly shakes off all the critics who lambasted the band’s last album, Make Believe. “Troublemaker” cops a riff from Pinkerton’s “The Good Life” and transforms it into another classic, and “The Greatest Man That Ever Lived (Variations on a Shaker Hymn)” reveals how promiscuous Cuomo has become with genres. It incorporates rap, old-school metal, emo, a monk-like chorus and more. Excessive? Certainly, but I dare you not to like it.

“Heart Songs” is a laundry list of artists and songs that have inspired Cuomo over the years. The fact that he calls them “heart songs” is the biggest drawback to the track, conjuring up the title of a mix tape a coifed teen would nervously give to his doe-eyed sweetheart on One Tree Hill. But again, it’s impossible to dislike, and kudos to Cuomo for admitting that artists like Gordon Lightfoot and Quiet Riot are part of his musical history. (Take note, songwriters who claim they were listening to Captain Beefheart and Philip Glass in second grade.)

Then the hammer drops. The album goes from songs that are kinda fun to have stuck in your head to songs that will hopefully slip away immediately, because if they do stick it will make commercial jingles seem like a nice alternative. “Everybody Get Dangerous” centers around an overly familiar guitar riff and a chorus of “Everybody get dangerous, boo yah.” It reminds me of horribly trite songs I used to hear every weekend from so many Philadelphia bar bands--repetitive and unimaginative. “Dreamin’” features some of the cheesiest lyrics I’ve heard in quite a while. Over the sound of birds chirping, we hear about bluebirds in the meadows, bees in the air, goslings in the river and angels in the heavens. It wouldn’t be out of place on a Celine Dion song.

And gone are the days when Cuomo would fine his bandmates for various infractions. The band dynamics seem to be a lot better these days, with Cuomo even letting the other dudes write and sing. I’m glad they’re all getting along now, but guitarist Brian Bell’s “Thought I Knew” and drummer Pat Wilson’s “Automatic” are dreadfully out of place, and the choice to let bassist Scott Shriner sing “Cold Dark World” destroyed an already below-average song.

Yes, it’s unreasonable and unfair to expect Blue Album songs from every Weezer release, but those little splices of greatness at the beginning make the bad tunes all the more disappointing. Maybe it’s that bushy mustache that’s throwing Cuomo off. I vote for a neck beard on the next album.

mp3: Weezer - The Greatest Man That Ever Lived (Variations on a Shaker Hymn)