Oh Weezer what happened to you? In the early 90s when people were still reeling from Kurt Cobain's curtain call on grunge you came along and lifted, if not the chin, then at least the hearts and hopes of alternative pop kids the world over. What with your hooky smarts, Spike Jonze videos and nerd chic. Now here you are in the old folks home dribbling on yourself.
It's a bit hard writing this review, 'cause the more I listen to this album the stupider I get. Which, it seems, is the intended audience. Dumb people. Not to mention an alignment with the populist self-congratulatory approach that the band are fixated on at the moment. (See: The 'Pork and Beans'
video featuring the internet). Weezer have always been self-referential - the first two "good" albums were founded on plumbing teenage dreams (
Blue Album) and a subsequent coming of age (
Pinkerton) - so it shouldn't be a surprise.
But 6 albums into a successful career the pop starts eating itself. While songwriter Rivers Cuomo errs on revealing himself a cipher for the shallow star-making machine he covets.
On The Red Album he tiresomely references his own legacy. In first track 'Troublemaker' he riffs I'm gonna be a star/ And people will crane necks/ To get a glimpse of me/ And see if I am having a sex/ In studying my moves/ They try to understand/ Why I am so unlike the singers in the other bands. We geddit. You're unlike them because you're the nerd who got lucky. And is singing about it. *Golf claps*. Unfortunately you seems hellbent on telling us rather than proving it. The saccharine NKOTB vibe of 'Heart Songs' drives this point into the ground; a veritable name-check of every band Rivers listened to growing up, set to a schmaltzy Yacht Rock tune. Actually that sounds almost good. It's not. It's like an AV Club 'What's on your Ipod?' interview backed by elevator music.
At least 'Troublemaker' is one of just a handful of decent songs on The Red Album that suggests any kind of celebrated - and FUN - history; along with fairly rocking first single 'Pork and Beans', the classic sounding 'Dreamin' - which could've been lifted from The Blue Album, before it shoots itself with an inane outro - and the darker 'Cold Dark World', which comes up short but at least kudos for the change of pace. Contentious second track 'The Greatest Man Who Ever Lived' - essentially 6 minutes of evolving 2 bar riffs that never resolve - also scores points for stretching the songbook, but ends up sounding like they asked their engineer to string together all their unfinished ideas in Pro Tools overnight. Rather than, y'know, into a "song". Duh.
The Red Album also marks the first time that other members of the band take on singing and songwriting duties. This as it turns out, was a shit idea. Bassist Scott Shriner is up first with 'Thought I Knew' an execrable piece of fluff that should be an embarrassment to anyone involved. Guitarist Brian Bell nearly gets away with a stomping 70s glam chorus for 'Automatic', but is poisoned by a crappy creaking computer effect at the end of each line.
In fact The Red Album could've been immediately better if so many otherwise decent songs weren't derailed by poor production/computer choices. A dodgy Garageband effect lurks at the end of a chorus; questionable sampled drums borrowed from Third Eye Blind, an endless stream of the kind of gimmicky ideas that engineers are supposed to weed out in their formative years. But in the end it's Rivers bed they must lie in. "I'm such a mystery" he sings. "As anyone can see there isn't anybody else exactly quite like me". Which, one concludes sadly, is deluded.