Weezer - Weezer (The White Album) (April 1, 2016) Album • Page 7

I haven't done this with a Weezer album since Maladriot, but actually sat down with headphones and gave it a FULL comprehensive listening session.

I definitely think there's something special about this release. I wouldn't go as far as to say it's another Blue or Pink(erton), but I can admit that the songs are great and it feels less produced than the last few - more like Rivers and co. rocking out together.

I'd give it a solid B+!

 

I think this sounds way more "produced" than EWBAITE, but that doesn't take anything away from it. The songs are just better than they were on Make Believe through Hurley

 

Weird, messy song. Glad it didn't make the album.

 

Woah, really? How do?

As a person who cannot stand MB/Red/Rad/Hurley this set list is perfect for me.

 

So, I really enjoyed seeing them at an intimate venue like Warsaw, which only fits about 1,000. I'll probably never see them in a place that small again.

That being said, there were a lot of problems. $70 for a 70 minute set (which includes Bevery Hills, Pork and Beans, etc.) is ludicrous, especially for a band that has ten albums now. It's the beginning of tour, but their playing was pretty sloppy at points, missing a bunch of easy transitions and sequences (ie: the kick in of distortion to the Island in the Sun chorus). The sound at the venue was pretty muddled and too high on Scott's bass for the first half of the set. Also, weird crowd. How do you get into this show but not know My Name Is Jonas?

"You Gave Your Love to Me Softly" kicked ass though.

 

damn, thats a bummer.

and yeah if some one didn't know Jonas at a weezer show i'd be really damn annoyed haha

 

Jacked Up is so good. "Why do my flowers always die?" hits hard and Pat does some really cool stuff on that song.

 

"Heart Songs" is, no joke, one of the worst songs I have ever heard.

 

What do you know, found this for $19 tonight

Wrestled with buying it for a while, but the fact that it's the biggest advance I ever received and the last AP.net review...ever...was the final push. Very happy with it. I can already tell I was wrong about "Endless Bummer," haha, great closing track.

 

Love that song so much. I don't know if it's because I listened to the songs they already released quite a bit before the album came out, but I love the five I hadn't heard even more. So so happy with this album.

 

Wanted to wait until I heard the album to read the review, but didn't think to archive it, any way you could share it here? Or let me know if it's somewhere else already

 

Can do! I saved text copies of all of my reviews and interviews, so as long as there are no objections, I'll paste it into a post here. I'm not sure if Jason would want to run it as an official Chorus review or not.

 

I love the closer.

 

I'd definitely like to read it again now that I've heard it as well.

 

Awesome! I look forward to reading it soon.

 

Weezer - Weezer (The White Album)
7.8/10 (Recommended)

This is not Pinkerton.

Now that we have that out of the way, let's examine where this 10th LP (fourth self-titled) fits within The Curious Case of Weezer.

To many, Weezer are hacks; they're notorious for "selling out" (whatever that means), a band who's switched not only styles but a frontman who famously experimented with hundreds of songwriting methods just to reach the heights of the band's classic debut, Weezer (The Blue Album). But it's what's happened between the time of The Blue Album and now that makes the band (and their enigmatic frontman, Rivers Cuomo) so endearing. There was critical success followed by critical failure; addiction followed by isolation, all in the name of goofy songs like "Hash Pipe" and "Island in the Sun." There was celibacy, meditation, marriage, divorce, a Lil Wayne feature, and a "return to form" all in the past two decades.

But this could be any band's history. When you're around for 20 years, you're bound to experience changes in your personal life that affect the songs you write, hopefully in a positive manner. All of this information might be irrelevant if we were talking about another band, but it's Weezer's ties to the scene that keep even their harshest critics coming back album after album. Most of it has to do with Pinkerton's status as a pillar of modern emo, but reflections of the band's entire discography can be seen in wake of other scene favorites, from indie all-stars like Brand New and Manchester Orchestra to looser, pop-driven acts like Fall Out Boy and Motion City Soundtrack (R.I.P.).

So where does this leave the Weezer of 2016? Coming off the heels of Everything Will Be Alright in the End, a surprising return to form (sue me), what are fans to make of The White Album? Simply put, The White Album is a fun one, a light-hearted companion piece void of the darker lyrical themes of its predecessor. In fact, if EWBAITE was almost total fan service, The White Album strikes a near-perfect balance between what fans want from Weezer and what they’ve come to expect from the Weezer of 2016.

Inspired by friends and strangers found on the beaches of California, The White Album tips its hat to The Beach Boys nearly as often as it does Weezer’s back catalog. This is never more apparent that on “(Girl We Got A) Good Thing,” one of the poppiest songs the band has ever written. Oddly enough, much of The White Album calls back to the low points of Weezer’s discography, presented now with 100% more purpose and conviction; polished guitars, bouncing pianos and sleigh bells lead the song’s standout chorus into verses filled with chugging guitars and a solo-fueled bridge.

The songs here are sonically split between singles like the album’s crunchy opening track, “California Kids,” (complete with a grin-inducing allusion to Pet Sounds in its opening glockenspiel notes) and the polarizing weirdness of “Thank God for Girls.” Perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s songs like the former that are likely to induce repeated listens, though the band’s experimentation with piano-driven pop does have its place. And when the two blend, the music is truly irresistible; it would be silly for a song like “Wind in Our Sail” not to be the next official single, because in essence, it combines everything current fans have come to enjoy about Weezer with just the right amount of the aforementioned elements (and unexpected vocal play from Cuomo) to best represent the album’s stylistic ambitions.

So where does The White Album fall short? Despite its flashy, rejuvenated energy, these songs simply lack the substance present throughout EWBAITE. I know what you may be thinking; Weezer has never been a lyric-driven band, and they've certainly never been a band expected to write about death and divorce all of the time. But quite simply, the fun-loving fantasy lyrics featured here don't exactly boost the album's lasting value. Still, Cuomo manages to dig up a tense emotional anecdote about addiction (the Green Album-referencing "Do You Wanna Get High?") and, much like a similar album released by The Front Bottoms last year, some engaging observations on masculinity and gender roles ("Thank God For Girls"). In fact, Cuomo even took the time to annotate these songs himself. "Summer Elaine and Drunk Dori" remains memorable for it's grungy guitar riff and sudden key changes, but the album's final numbers ("Jacked Up" and "Endless Bummer") are regrettably anti-climatic, thus providing an unremarkable close to an otherwise charming listen.

Somebody asked me a few weeks ago whether or not I thought "Weezer was back," and truly, I'm not even sure I know what that means. So much of songwriting is subjective; in example, I tend to think Make Believe is a better album than most give it credit for because it was my first Weezer album. And you know what? I think The Red Album is really, really bad for the most part. But what I can say for certain about The White Album (and its predecessor) is that for the first time since 2002, it sounds like Weezer are not only enjoying the music they're making, but living up to the admittedly impossible standards some Blue Album and Pinkerton purists tend to put on them. With The White Album, Weezer solidify their place as a more-than-capable modern pop-rock band, and if that means as much to you as it does to me, we're left with hope that Rivers and co. will continue to grace us with as many sonic experiments as they have left in their KISS-worshipping bodies.

 

Apologies for the formatting; none of that saved in the text file. Hopefully this has my edits in it and isn't an early draft.

 

Apologies for the formatting; none of that saved in the text file.

 

I don't get the hate for Endless Bummer and Jacked Up. Two of my favorites on the album.

 

My issue with Jacked Up is the high vocal in the chorus. Otherwise, the song is great.

 

No worries. Good review. And I'm glad you came around on Endless Bummer, such a good closer to this record.

(PS. Make Believe rules)

 

Can't stop listening to LA Girlz.

 

Jacked Up is possibly my favorite song on the album. That falsetto is crazy.

 

My favorite band is Our Lady Peace. I have no issue with falsetto vocals.

 

I don't think I'll ever be able to pick a favorite, my gut says Summer Elaine, but the rest are just as good. I just really love this album okay