Weezer. Four Guys. Ten Tracks. Great Music. Enough Said?

Weezer. Ahhh glorious Weezer.

I’ll be brutally honest here. I know nothing about the group. Sometimes it’s best to not know anything about a band and just enjoy their music. People seem to get way too caught up in the glitz and glamour of the music business and the true vision of the group falls by the wayside. It happened with Nirvana, it happened with Bon Jovi, it happened with Stain. The one thing that I absolutely adore about Weezer is that, while predictable, they are a band that never puts out crap. Turn on the radio and listen to the first fifteen seconds of a Weezer song and there is no doubt ... it is a Weezer track. Sure, this can be said about other groups but Weezer manages to rise above monotony with tracks like “Undone” and “Say It Ain’t So”. In fact, their song “Beverly Hills” [not on this CD] earned me a ticket for $63.17 [indecent exposure within the city limits]. In hindsight I should have kept my shirt on but what the hell, at that very moment in time ripping my shirt off and jumping around just felt like the right thing to do.

The Tracks

My Name Is Jonas
No One Else
This World Has Turned And Left Me Here
Buddy Holly
Undone [The Sweater Song]
Surf Wax America
Say It Ain’t So
In The Garage
Holiday
Only In Dreams

There’s a lot of variety to the music on this release but at the same time, there is an underlying consistency that is undeniably Weezer. It reminds me of the old sound of REM before Michael Stipe got all weirded out. When you start out with this CD and listen to the opening track you are getting a good taste of what it has to offer but don’t judge the entire thing by that single track. There are nice little gems like “Surf Wax America” and “Holiday”. As soon as the first ten seconds of “Surf Wax America” came on I knew it - one of the guys at Pacific Eyes & T’s used to play this over and over again when his manager wasn’t in the store. There he was bopping around like a Mexican jumping bean. In fact, it’s pretty hard to sit still when this song is on, it has a really hype beat to it but it’s not that thrash punk stuff that gives you a headache. And before you even think it, this is nothing like that recycled Green Day sounding garbage that is monopolizing the airwaves and proliferating like rabbits on Viagra.

Lest you think that Weezer is a superficial band, songs like “In The Garage” and “Say It Ain’t So” prove that they have many different levels to them. It’s the recessed beat and mood of the opening of “Say It Ain’t So” that keeps me hooked on their music. Since the lyrics aren’t provided you pretty much have to pick them apart yourself but that’s not hard to do because most of it is actually sung, not screamed [oww, that didn’t sound like a proper bit of grammar did it?]. I guess if you were to sit there and pick the lyrics apart you’d see that they all went through the same angst and pain that everyone, at one time or another, experience except they have one hell of an impressive way of voicing it.

Dear daddy, I write you in spite of years of silence
you cleaned up, found Jesus, things are good or so I hear
This bottle of Stevens, awakens ancient feelings
Like father, step father, the son is drowning in the flood

“In The Garage” can be interpreted as a token “yeah, life sucks but I don’t care” kind of song but hey, if you have the balls to openly admit that you play Dungeons & Dragons, still have KISS posters on the wall and feel safe in your garage then more power to you. This is one of the few tracks where you really get to hear the bass, sure it gets pushed out of the way most of the time but when you do hear it, it gives the song a little bit of bulk. There are some pretty popular songs on this release but “Holiday” is one of those innocent ones that always makes me break out in a huge smile. I hate to say this but it’s like watching a John Hughes movie [Sixteen Candles, Breakfast Club etc]. No matter how many times you see it [or in this case hear the song], it still has an impact on you. If I wasn’t so in love with “The Sweater Song” [Undone], I’d have to say that this was my choice pick from this CD.

I guess this entire CD can be summed up by the closing track, “Only In Dreams”. It’s one of the slower tracks but one that you just have to hear to understand why it’s so hot. Why this wasn’t in every teen flick is beyond me because it is a phenomenal track. The perfect mix of a slow and sultry beat with slick smooth vocals, if you own this and never listened to this song, you are really cheating yourself out of some great Weezer music. The last three minutes of the song is so strong that you really wished it would pick up with another track but alas, that’s all you get. This is where I normally sit here and rattle off some interesting facts about the group or what inspired them to write a certain song but with this group, there’s no need to do that. Their music speaks for itself ... well, that and the fact that I know nothing about the group. But I do know this, if you are into a slightly alternative sound and have never listened to anything from Weezer, this is a good one to start out with.

The Bottom Line

While most groups are under the guise of “bigger is better” Weezer sticks to their roots. They write songs about stuff that they like and that really shows in the quality of their music. Someone said that Weezer reminded them of Nirvana, that’s a comparison that I just don’t get because Nirvana was filled with so much angst and “we hate everyone” crap that it was hard for me, a hard core grunge fan, to make my way through it. Weezer goes down as smoothly as a pint of warm lager [um, that means it’s really smooth] and is one of my all time favorite CD’s. I could have sworn that I wrote a review of this a while back but after scouring the database to try and find it, I have to assume that it never got posted or was accidentally erased. Oh well, it gave me another chance to listen to it and crack more than a few smiles.


As always, thanks for the read!

~^V^~ Freak ~^V^~

© 2006 Freak369


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