Weezer (Red Album)

Performer: Weezer
Distributor: Universal Distribution

Notes: The third self-titled album by Weezer mixes the hooky sound of their 1994 and 2001 releases (known as the "blue" and "green" albums, respectively) with the experimental tendencies of efforts like PINKERTON. Like its eponymously titled cousins, Weezer's sixth release overall (destined to become known as "the red album") sports a full frontal picture of the band, dressed this time in costumes that call to mind the Village People. Cheekiness has always been central to Weezer's aesthetic: their music takes an arch, outsider's approach to rock while still rocking out in earnest, channeling the awkwardness of the bookish geek through a cranked-up amplifier. This latest WEEZER embraces this contradiction with glee. With a hook-heavy, singalong melody driven by powerhouse guitars, lead single "Pork and Beans" is a subversive ditty about the pressures of tailoring one's image and sound for commercial ends. "Troublemaker," another anti-conformist tract, is wrapped in a tune tasty as cotton candy. This is classic Weezer: sure-fire pop songs that play both sides of the alternative/ mainstream fence. Yet the experimental aspects of the band are also represented on tunes like "The Greatest Man That Ever Lived," which brings together Southern rap, heavy metal, religious hymns, and police sirens in one song. Production by Rick Rubin and Jacknife Lee makes the songs gleam, but it's the tunefulness, cleverness, and irresistibility of Weezer's music that makes this another winner in the band's discography.

Spin (p.96) - 3.5 stars out of 5 -- "'Pork and Beans' and 'Troublemaker' rally against conformity while supplying spiffy hooks." Entertainment Weekly (pp.68-69) - "[Cuomo's] sharp sense of melody is undeniably intact..." Kerrang (Magazine) (p.46) - "[There is] melody to spare, a sense of compositional and tonal genius that makes this by turns a playful, witty, weird, confusing and mesmerizing set." Kerrang (Magazine) (p.62) - Ranked #11 in Kerrang's Best Albums Of The Year 2008 -- "[E]ffortlessly catchy tunes." Q (Magazine) (p.111) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "Everything is supercharged and melodic, like a poppy version of Nirvana..."

Weezer's 1994 debut yielded the band two big hit singles in "Buddy Holly" and "Undone - The Sweater Song," whose quirky appeal gave the initial impression that the group was some kind of novelty act. Despite the wiseacre veneer though, Weezer went on to successfully combine bracing, punk-poppy alternative rock with a deep sense of irony that often made it impossible to tell whether the band was rocking out or "rocking out." This conceptual tension endeared Weezer to indie aesthetes, while the band's charging riffs and pummeling rhythms endeared them to a larger audience.

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