RoBeast Review: Weezer - Hurley

Spoilers, I guess?

Make Believe was the last Weezer album I bought. It pissed me off a lot. I think most people were pissed off way before that, but I stuck it out for a bit. I like a couple songs from that album, but because that album came during a year of disappointing purchases, I swore I wouldn't buy another from them sight unseen/sound unheard.

Since then, I haven't heard much of their output except for the radio singles.That semi-acoustic song with the long title from the last album was catchy, but nothing else moved me enough to throw my money at them again. Fortunately, their new album Hurley happens to be streaming freely on Myspace, so I figured there would be no harm in listening. Here is a quick rundown of my crude impressions in 140 characters or less. (Apologies to my Twitter pals who've sat through this already for the last half hour).

First song "Memories" is terrible.

"Ruling Me" - nice bright chords, terribly pedestrian rhymes 

"Trainwrecks" 80s power ballad bad on purpose? wouldn't listen again. the guitar leads all sound recorded direct in so far.

"Unspoken" starts plain. gets schmaltzy. then gets heavy. best dynamics so far, but still shitty, shitty chorus lyrics.

"Where's my sex" has got me infuriated. It's a nice tune, but I wrote the lyrics "Where's my sextant" 3 years ago. I'm more clever.

One more for "Where's My Sex?" It has an awesome completely misplaced bridge. #hurley should have started on track 4.

"Run Away" short and sweet. more recycled rhymes (i'm actually plotting a blog around this).

"Hang On" Ok. By the numbers. Nothing special.

Back to all-out garbage with "Smart Girls." (though I do really dig the barbershop background vox in the chorus)       

I almost like "Brave New World." But I don't. I enjoy the riffs/progressions and background vox but lyrics are blah again. 

"Time Flies" lo-fi demo quality of this tune is a welcome change. would make for a good hidden track. The End.  

Had this been an 5-song EP, I might consider owning it, but there's just too many things that make me roll my eyes. The bad songs are either incredibly generic or outright annoying. The tedium quickly steamrolls whatever positive momentum they gathered in the middle. When "Smart Girls" came on, all hope was instantly deflated. I don't know if The Weezer Problem is that they're too prolific and don't know how to toss their shitty songs back into the lake, or if they have just sunk to a point where shitty is their new standard. Putting out an album every single year is an admirable goal for a mainstream band these days, and I applaud them for achieving that in the past three years, but the creative experiment is not amounting to anything. The songs aren't getting more complex, more interesting, or better. It's going to take a lot more hard work to get that killer Weezer's Greatest Hits in 2018. 

If they do ever put out a greatest hits compilation, I suggest they call it Phone because Rivers seems to have some obsession with the word. It's on this album twice. In "Run Away," we have:

And now you're all alone
You're sitting by the telephone

 And in "Ruling Me" it's:

Ring ring goes your telephone
You act like you ain't at home

 Anybody remember the B-Side "Suzanne" from Mallrats?

When I met you I was all alone
Cold and hungry cryin' on the phone

 From "Jamie" around the same time:

Jamie, who's faxin' you now?
Who's dialin' your car phone?

"Knock Down Drag Out" on The Green Album has:

Any day now you'll call me up on the phone
Say you love me more than you ever did before

"Slob" on Maladroit:

Leave me alone
I won't pick up the phone

It shows up twice in the Rivers Cuomo side project Homie, and I don't have the patience to sift through his two solo home recording compilations called Alone and Alone II. Yeah, "alone" is another word that someone should take away from him.

That's all I've got for now. I hope this entry gets this blog some god damned hits. I've got nothing to offer the centaur porn crowd.