Album: Weezer Release Date: 05/15/2001 Length: 28:29 Label: Geffen Rating: 2.7 |
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| Track Listing | |
1. Don't Let Go (2:59)  |
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| 2. Photograph (2:19) | |
3. Hash Pipe (3:06)  |
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| 4. Island in the Sun (3:20) | |
| 5. Crab (2:34) |
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| 6. Knock-Down Drag-Out (2:08) | |
| 7. Smile (2:38) | |
| 8. Simple Pages (2:56) | |
| 9. Glorious Day (2:40) |
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| 10. O Girlfriend (3:49) | |
| Review | |
| If Fox ever starts a TV show titled ‘When Good Bands Go Bad,' Weezer will most certainly be on it. The band responsible for cult classics like "Undone (The Sweater Song)" and "Say It Ain’t So" is now writing mindless two minute ditties rhyming "dance" with "romance." It wasn’t always this bad though. | |
| Weezer burst onto the music scene in the early 90's with an extremely catchy single in "Buddy Holly" and the added bonus that they played rock music for the "nerds." After the grunge era quickly faded, Weezer was the next best thing around; emotional songs written by a dorky guy with a fixation for Asian women. | |
| Unfortunately, it was this fixation with Asian women that began the downfall of the band. After raking in an incredible amount of sales for their debut self-titled album (referred to by fans as The Blue Album) the question became, "Just how does one top a perfect pop rock record?" | |
| Lead vocalist Rivers Cuomo and company went back to the drawing board two years later and came back with a concept album of sorts that they called Pinkerton. According to Rivers, it loosely follows the story of the play "Madame Butterfly," except that Mr. Cuomo related the play to his own troubled life. Commercially, the album was a huge failure when compared to Blue, and critically, initially at least, it was almost universally panned. | |
| Thus began the great disappearance of Weezer. After penning such emotional lyrics and having his feelings completely stomped on by dozens of rock critics, Rivers went into seclusion, disappearing from his band and the music scene while he re-grouped. | |
| While the band was gone, their popularity magically began to increase. The great "emo-rock" fad had begun with bands like Jimmy Eat World and The Get Up Kids hooking kids around North America with simple music and simple lyrics, and many of these so-called "Emo" bands mentioned Weezer as one of their biggest influences. What followed was a renewed interest in a band that hadn’t been heard from in four years, along with a newfound respect for Pinkerton, the record everyone used to love to hate. | |
| This is probably where things begin to go awry. When Weezer returned, they did so with a very ‘turtle in his shell’ attitude. Cuomo has since commented that Pinkerton was the biggest mistake of his life, and rarely does the band even play songs from Pinkerton live. After reading such disturbing comments from the leader of the band, one had to wonder just how the return of Weezer would sound. Surely, its self-titled nature would bring us back to the days of The Blue Album, right? | |
| Absolutely wrong. The Green Album is filled to the brim with nondescript, asinine lyrics that wouldn’t appeal to anyone with any musical sense at all. The album is littered with phrases like this one, from "Island In The Sun" -- "When you’re on a holiday / you can’t find the words to say / all the things that come to you / and I wanna feel it too." | |
| The complete lack of emotion and conviction in Cuomo’s voice suggests that during the long four-year layoff, the man completely forgot how to sing. That isn’t all he forgot how to do, either. The man forgot how to grind an axe. | |
| The guitar playing found within Green is amazingly simplistic, especially during the solos. Anyone even moderately skilled at playing a guitar could quickly pick up and play any of the songs on the disc without any kind of difficulty. | |
| And there lies the problem with the whole album. It seems like after not doing anything for four years, this disc was written, recorded, and marketed in the span of two weeks. It doesn’t feel as if any emotion or thought went into making the record. That is what irks me so greatly about this "return of the rock." Oh to go back to the days of a little Surf Rock U.S.A. | |
| Rating: 2.7 | |
| - Dan Kricke |
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