Weezer: Weezer
Reviewed as part of Addison Godel's Desert Island Collection
Weezer
occupy a curious place in the popular consciousness.
Mention them to someone of a certain age and they'll almost certainly
lapse into a nostalgic rendition of "Buddy Holly" or "Undone (The
Sweater Song)," the band's two biggest hits.
What's interesting is that this nostalgia is of a different flavor than
the cheesy, guilty-pleasure indulgence in, say, "Walk Like An
Egyptian." Those who followed
Weezer at the time of their greatest popularity (1994-95) may have moved on to
other things, but they still seem to recognize that there was something special
about this band. Their singles, and
their albums, betray the fact that this was a band of the highest quality, who
produced pop-influenced, song-oriented rock albums that would have made the
(Revolver-era) Beatles jealous.
Despite the considerable merits of the band's second album, Pinkerton (a darkly shaded and lyrically challenging effort exploring songwriter Rivers Cuomo's personal obsessions), it is their eponymous debut that stands as their signature effort. Weezer is a start-to-finish procession of hooky, sing-along, shamelessly poppy songs, lended some much-needed grit by Cuomo's background as a heavy metal fan (plus the punk-inspired distortion and fuzz that was popular at the time). The songs glide on the surface but churn underneath, bringing their emotional power out slowly and convincingly. Even the most upbeat songs ("Surf Wax America" and "Holiday"), which tell tales of summertime escapism, are pained and cynical underneath; the speaker in "Surf," who proclaims his disdain for the workaday world and his love of surfing, is swept out to sea by the undertow and can never go home.
But
the record's centerpiece is "Say It Ain't So," an indirect statement
of the pain that separates a father and his son, the latter of whom confronts
himself with his own suffering in the miserable, insecure buzz drawn out by a
bottle of booze discovered in the back of the fridge.
Borrowing Nirvana's trick of transitioning from a quiet verse to a loud
chorus, and taking advantage of three different and unforgettable guitar riffs,
"Say It Ain't So" epitomizes the Weezer formula and reaches a height
of emotional intensity that many later bands, who picked up on Weezer's geeky
goofiness but not their songwriting craft or roaring heart, would fail to even come close to.
The
individual songs vary in terms of success,
mystique, and accessibility.
But all of Weezer's ten tracks
are great in their way; the album as a whole is a classic piece of music and, in
years to come, will be held up as one of the crowning achievements of
90s rock.