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Weezer’s “Hurley” (2010) – The Weekend Review

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By Chris Moore:

RATING:  3.5 / 5 stars

Simply put, Hurley is Weezer’s return to high energy rock music.

And it’s good.

Okay, so I’ll admit that it is difficult to take an album like Hurley seriously, given the ostensibly random title and accompanying cover photo that is apropos of nothing contained within.  And yet, you should endeavor to get past the cover, the pathetic excuse for CD packaging, and the bad press the album has received from those who, on the heels of Raditude, understandably won’t give it a chance, including — perhaps most notably — one James Burns, a man currently engaged in a campaign to raise $10 million as incentive for Weezer to break up.

I would suggest that he give this album a chance, but it turns out he not only is not but also has never been a fan of the band.

This is such a pity, as Hurley is an album so true to classic Weezer that it makes more sense to compare it to The Green Album (2001) than any of the four subsequent releases.  Aside from the echoes of Raditude on “Smart Girls,” the rock sensibility of Hurley extends past the experimental aura of The Red Album, doesn’t quite match the tone of Make Believe, and is certainly not cut out of the same carefully orchestrated hard rock fabric that defined Maladroit.

Musically, the track listing conjures those early albums: a total running time that barely cracks the half hour mark across ten songs with concise titles, all upbeat rock tracks with distorted guitars that play like a mix between garage rock and clean studio sounds.

As for the cover, I have never understood the criticism lobbed at The Red Album and Raditude.  Because a man who looks like a doll reading a newspaper wasn’t weird.  Neither, apparently, was several depressed looking cartoons wearing the traditional garb of the Orient wandering aimlessly around a snowy mountainside.  And four guys standing in front of a bright blue screen looking like they’d forgotten it was picture day wasn’t odd; that was somehow classic.

Hurley (Weezer, 2010)

Hurley (Weezer, 2010)

Weezer has always been quirky, and that has always been a large part of their appeal.  In a manner that should be palatable to the average rock fan, they have assembled Hurley as a return to that form, with a couple worthwhile variations thrown in for good measure.

The opening track and lead single “Memories” is honest, in-your-face rock music that begins with reminiscences that would have fit in comfortably on The Red Album, but quickly transitions to a catchy chorus and a middle stirred to perfection with a shredded vocal delivery by Rivers Cuomo.

He loosens the reigns vocally on several other occasions, not the least of which is that pinnacle of quirkiness “Where’s My Sex?,” the shtick here being that the word “sex” replaces the word “socks” throughout the song.  The result is a rocking, if somewhat ridiculous, track.

“Unspoken” is an acoustic gem, but even this song can’t help but rock out in the latter half, just as “Time Flies” wants to be the pensive closer, yet is so steady in beat as to evade the classification as a “slow song.”

Although many of the strongest tracks are placed early on the record — “Trainwrecks” being one, if not the, standout song — even the potentially mediocre numbers, like “Smart Girls” and “Brave New World,” achieve cohesion and momentum.  “Ruling Me,” “Run Away,” and “Hang On” are similarly impressive in their focus and balance between simplicity and interesting vocal and instrumental hooks.

This isn’t the new Weezer classic.  It shouldn’t be interpreted as the new Green Album, nor should it be compared to the heights of their career, in 1994 and 2002.  And yet, as much as Make Believe was underrated (and sadly oversimplified as “the one with ‘Beverly Hills’ on it”)  and as much as The Red Album grew on me and quickly became a favorite of mine in 2008, Hurley is arguably the best rock album Weezer has produced in eight years.

If nothing else, it provides proof positive that this band has not gone off the deep end (band-led hootenannies and Rivers Cuomo’s train conductor’s uniform notwithstanding). Hurley can be read as a nod to fans of their rock mentality, and the message is clear: this is a band that can still rock…. when they want to.

Editor’s note: this post was originally published before December 2015; the exact original date is uncertain.

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“Automatic” (Weezer Cover)

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By Chris Moore:

Welcome to a fresh new Tuesday installment of the best acoustic cover song music blog series in the universe! That’s right — not just the country or the world, but the universe! Of course, I said the series is good, so that doesn’t guarantee that I’ll be any good, so you’ll just have to take your chances tonight…

Tonight’s music video is an acoustic cover from the new Weezer (Red Album). “Automatic” is track nine of ten — a powerhouse of an electric number with a great distortion guitar riff — and written by drummer Pat Wilson. I read that Wilson actually played the guitar for this one and frontman Rivers Cuomo sat at the drums. If you search YouTube videos like I did, you’ll find that there are some live versions of the songs from the Red Album already available and the one for “Automatic” is definitely worth checking out, if only for the alternative arrangement of the band.

I love to see when the bands I love switch it up a bit and allow other members to take the center stage, if only briefly. Some great bands that have done this on a regular basis are the Band, the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Barenaked Ladies, the Moody Blues, and — now — Weezer! Still, many of my favorite musicians and bands are really one-man shows with a band to support them. Take Jakob Dylan (Wallflowers) and Adam Duritz (Counting Crows) just for a couple examples. Dylan and Duritz are two of my favorite songwriters, and although I like their bands, it is really their songwriting and lead singing that makes me love the bands and continue to buy their albums.

Even as I’m writing this, I can only think of one real exception to this songwriter-over-band preference of mine. Namely, Matchbox Twenty. I love Matchbox Twenty, and I have since their first album. I have bought every album and even loved their recent EP. But I just didn’t understand why Rob Thomas had to go off separately and try a solo career. For all intents and purposes, he really IS Matchbox Twenty. I mean, up until the EP, he wrote literally every song on each of their releases!

Exception aside, I have thoroughly enjoyed the new Weezer album, and I hope you have too. If you haven’t, you should really check it out. I found that the first couple tracks threw me a bit at first, but I quickly fell in love with a number of the songs — such as “Though I Knew” (a previous Laptop Session I recorded) and “Miss Sweeney” (a bonus track on the special edition).

Well, I’m off to do some work to promote all the great things happening here at the music blog. If you haven’t already, you should really check out the past couple days’ worth of posts — there is some great stuff, and much of it is FREE! There are live concert tracks, TNA pictures, and of course, great acoustic cover songs!

See you next session!



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Music Review: Weezer’s “Raditude”

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RATING:  1 / 5 stars

By Chris Moore:

I was the first to scoff at early negative reviews of the new Weezer album.  It seemed there was an inordinate number of swipes at the admittedly odd title, Raditude.  After all, I reasoned, Rivers Cuomo hasn’t exactly built his career by being serious.

So, it was with high hopes that I started listening to Raditude.  From the opening track — “(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To” — it became immediately apparent that the lyrics would be juvenile.

And yet this was never a turn-off.

I had heard this song, the first single, about fifteen or twenty times before the album was even released.  It had been leaked on YouTube, then removed, then reposted by another source, and finally released officially as the single.  And, each time I heard it, I liked it more and more.  This is saying a great deal, considering that the song includes references to watching Titanic and eating meat loaf as key plot points.

The way I see it, there are two types of great Weezer songs:  introverted, introspective ballads and catchy, fun rock/pop gems.

Any serious Weezer fan who will disparage the quality of Cuomo’s lyrics in 2009 needs to think back to such earlier tracks as “No One Else” — “My girl’s got a big mouth, with which she blabbers a lot…” — and “Getchoo” — “Sometimes I push too hard; sometimes you fall and skin your knee…”  And can anyone even begin to transcribe the lyrics to “Hash Pipe”?

I didn’t think so.

Weezer's "Raditude" (2009)

Weezer's "Raditude" (2009)

So, the credibility and entertainment value of “(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To” being established, the other nine songs on Raditude should be addressed.  In a nutshell, the new album is generally a mixed bag — one part catchy guitar hooks, one part derivative stylistic choices, and two parts juvenile and (to be frank) ridiculous lyrics — that all amounts to a mediocre collection of material.

I’ve always been drawn to Rivers Cuomo’s firm embrace on the simple, pure, and raw emotions that we generally attribute to the innocence (and immaturity) of youth, but this time around, there is little for me to relate to or feel moved by.

“I’m Your Daddy” is about as two dimensional a song as you’ll ever find, stripped of Cuomo’s trademark quirky innocence to reveal an inexperienced Romeo.  It is also a bit creepy to listen to after learning that he began writing it while watching his daughter.

“The Girl Got Hot” is driven by catchy, distortion-drenched guitars, but again the lyrics fall short.  I kept waiting for a moral to the story — I would have settled for something as simple as “don’t judge a book by its cover” — but all I ended up with was the singer’s revelation that, when it comes to Kiki Dee’s friends, “She got hot, and they did not.”  Oh, and the phrase “buyer beware” is potentially problematic, but I won’t even go there.

Then comes the piece de la resistance, “Can’t Stop Partying.”  Again, I waited for the subtext that the lyrics must surely contain, considering the minor chords and Cuomo’s diction — “can’t stop” implies addiction.  And again, I was met with lines like “If you was me, honey, you would do it too” and “Screw rehab; I love my addiction.”  Just when I thought it couldn’t get less redeemable, Lil Wayne lays down a chauvinistic, obscenity laden ode to excess.

The remainder of the album is divided between forgettable, inane tracks — like “In the Mall” — and solid, albeit middle-of-the-road songs — like “Put Me Back Together.”  The latter track is one of my favorites from the new album, even though it is difficult to shake the feeling that this would have been a filler track on any earlier Weezer release.

Other tracks like “Let It All Hang Out” and “Love is the Answer” are debatable — on the upside, they do tap into the aforementioned pure, raw emotions that the band’s best material always has, yet there is nothing extraordinary about them.

At the end of the day, I have to reluctantly admit that my opinion is not so divergent from that of Slant reviewer Huw Jones — strictly in his opinion of this album, but NOT his opinion of Weezer’s overall career arc (he’s seriously off there).  Weezer has finally released an album that I can’t endorse — and that I, unfortunately, can’t listen to for very long without feeling disappointed.

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Steven Page leaves the Barenaked Ladies!

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By Chris Moore:

In a post Wednesday on the official Barenaked Ladies website (titled simply as “A Message from Barenaked Ladies”), it was announced that Steven Page has officially left the band after two decades of writing, recording, and performing together with his bandmates.  The first paragraph of the message is as follows:

“By mutual agreement, Steven Page will be parting company with the remaining members of Barenaked Ladies. Jim Creeggan, Kevin Hearn, Ed Robertson, and Tyler Stewart will continue recording and touring together as Barenaked Ladies. Steven Page will pursue solo projects including theatrical opportunities while the band enters the studio in April 2009, and hits the road in the fall.”

For a band that is world-renowned for their candor and lightheartedness, this is quite the sanitized message!  It feels very formal, politic, and purposeful — for instance, the remaining band members are arranged alphabetically.  It seems that the natural response has been to wonder how much of this departure was precipitated by Page’s arrest for drug-related charges in July.  According to the Toronto branch of the AP, Ed Robertson has admitted that it was a “huge event” in their lives, but that Page’s departure “isn’t about that.”

While it isn’t entirely clear what it is about, his split from the band comes at a sad time, just as they were about to go back into the studio to release their first album since BnL turned twenty.  Fortunately for Barenaked Ladies fans, the AP also reported that the remaining members of the band — Ed, Kevin, Jim, and Tyler — will indeed be back in the studio in April to work on a new record. As for Steven Page?  “Solo projects including theatrical opportunities.”

It stands to be noted that the Barenaked Ladies are one of — if not the most — universally loved band around here at the Laptop Sessions, as if this wasn’t already made obvious by the fact that Jim, Chris, Mike, Becky, and Cliff have all participated in BnL cover song music videos over the past couple years — more than any other covered artist! (This record may be tied with the Beach Boys, but I’ll have to check…)

I was struck this morning by just how many of my favorite bands have been split by solo projects recently.  All my favorite nineties bands, to be certain — Rob Thomas first went the way of the solo artist, promising that Matchbox Twenty had not officially broken up and will return to the studio (although Thomas worked in 2008 on his second solo album, there are rumors of a 2009 Matchbox Twenty release!).

Rivers Cuomo released his home recordings under his name, but has continued to write, record, and perform with Weezer.

One by one, personnel change after departure, Jakob Dylan (although there still is officially a Wallflowers band) struck out on his own last year with his debut album Seeing Things.  Apparently Rami Jaffee (the only other original original member aside from Dylan) has still interacted with the band, as evidenced by the recent Rusty Truck performance on Jimmy Kimmel’s show, which featured both Jaffee and longtime Wallflowers bassist Greg Richling.  Jimmy Kimmel mentioned that Dylan had appeared on the Rusty Truck studio recording.  So, they’re still playing together, just not in the Wallflowers…

Over the past few years, other bands have been interrupted by solo projects.  Those projects include this year’s Dan Auerbach album (he’s one half of the blues rock group the Black Keys), as well as last year’s second Raconteurs CD (staffed by, among others, Jack White of the White Stripes).  While these projects have not broken up their main bands, the formation of Jack’s Mannequin in 2004 by Andrew McMahon led to his other band (Something Corporate) to officially go “on hiatus.”

So, interstingly enough, at a time when many people are clinging to their current jobs during a time of economic distress, popular musicians continue to branch out and make music on their own, either separating permanently or temporarily from their bands to work independently.

As Ed Robertson stated in the official message on the BnL website, “It’s the start of a new chapter for all of us. Here’s to the future!”

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