Weezer - Red Album

[Billgoodman]

they said that the next album would be recorded as soon as the end of this year
by Weezer standards a new album should be released in 2010. Maybe sooner
but I wouldn't count on it.

[warnakey]

I too am very obsessed with the Early Weezer, up even until Maladroit. The Red Album has some great moments (Angel And the One) But its just so tough to get into this album just like a lot of other people said. It might take a couple years.

[Alex]

Ok,

I've been listening to this new album a lot and I must say it is not as bad as I first kept thinking. It's still a mediocre album and I hate Rick Rubin + the songs and vocals by other members of the band are pointless and fillers BUT this albums is listenable.

I also gave Make Believe a listen after not listening to it in a long time. I think the song material on Make Believe is the best on a Weezer album since Pinkerton; lots of melodic and skilled compositions but the producing side is so typically supercommercial sterile mainstream america that it makes the music suck and the absolutely HORRIBLE mastering makes the album really hard to listen to. It actually makes my ears hurt a bit. Why on earth did Weezer have to get involved in the "loudness war"?! Why, WHY oh god WHYY?!?! Or maybe that was purely Rick "guaranteed to make your music suck" Rubin's decision.  Anyway, Weezer deserves the blame beacuse they have sold out.

For years Weezer has been for me the last active band I really pay attention to and I... feel... empty now that there is nothing left in the mainstream music scene for me to listen to... except Muse. Reminds me how the other day I was listening to this radio channel and they played a "hot new song" by a "hot new band"; it was 'Cute is what we aim for' with 'practise makes perfect'... it was horrible untalented and typically sterile american mainstream merda.

It is pretty hard to imagine that there is anything left. Nirvana was the last great revolution if you wanna put it that way but it was basically repeating the same old popmusic with Cobain's awesome vocals and instead of being a true revolution it was just a commercial trend for couple of years until the multiculturalist propaganda channel MTV decided to change the gear. I guess this might be the end for pop music.

Anybody seen the movie 'Idiocracy'? That's where we are going and I guess the horrible state of commercial culture is just a symptom of all the corruption and apathy among people... and I'm getting pretty damn frustrated.


 

It's not the end of pop music. It's just the end of good music in the mainstream. There's still a lot of good alternative/indie music out there...you just have to dig for it! But I doubt another musical revolution will happen...not with rock music, at least. Everything's way too fragmented these days for a single artist to capture mass consciousness. Just listen to what you like, I guess.

...and Nirvana was quite overrated.

[Ptolemaios]

"Billboard.com also reported that Weezer will be heading into the studio in early November to cut Weezer album 7 with Jacknife Lee who recorded two songs on The Red Album, most notably, "Pork and Beans." Drummer Pat Wilson stated the band is wasting no time cutting a new record because they are all going to continue to write songs and since they no longer rely on one person for the songs, they culminate an albums worth of songs much more quickly."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weezer#The_Red_Album_.282007.E2.80.93present.29

Another album on the way but I kind of dislike the idea that everyone in the band writes songs 'cos Rivers is way more talented in my opinion when it comes to songwriting than the rest of the guys. Oh well, I'm looking forward to hearing what Rivers comes up with.

[Alex]

I doubt any new Weezer album is ever going to be as good as the glory days of Blue and Pinkerton. The only songs I liked from the Red Album were "The Greatest Man Who Ever Lived" and "Dreamin'". I like "Greatest Man" because Weezer are trying something they haven't really done before with that song, but the first section with the rapping is pretty lame. "Dreamin'" is an OK song, but just sounds very formulaic, like Weezer making a lame attempt to sound like they used to. I think Weezer is pretty much moving into their equivalent of the "M.I.U./L.A./KTSA/BB85/Still Cruisin'/Summer In Paradise"
-era. I'll just listen to Blue, SFTBH, and Pinkerton and be happy we've got those, since it doesn't look like Matt Sharp is coming back to Weezer anytime soon.

[runnersdialzero]

-era. I'll just listen to Blue, SFTBH, and Pinkerton and be happy we've got those, since it doesn't look like Matt Sharp is coming back to Weezer anytime soon.

Matt Sharp wasn't the reason Weezer were great. I don't understand where this comes from.

Rivers' songwriting changed because Pinkerton failed. It hit him very hard, and something in his brain snapped after that. Matt Sharp didn't have sh*t to do with it - one can look at the songwriting credits and hear Rivers' demos of the old songs to know that.

He has, over time, gotten his sense of sincerity back into his music, but he and his songwriting are still not the same.

You guys heard Rivers' "Don't Worry Baby"? He released it last year on his Alone II album, it was recorded around the same time he was writing the Blue songs. Pretty good, methinks.

[Ptolemaios]

Don't worry baby is great! Both Alone albums are good but the second one is great! Sounds like the Weezer album I've been waiting for years.

I'm repeating myself but I must stress that I believe Make Believe sucked not beacause of the songs but because of the horrible sterile-clean supercompressed Rick Rubin production. I read that the band and Rubin had somekind of an argument or something during the making of Red Album and Rubin "stopped showing up". I hope they are no longer working together! Please, let it be so!

[runnersdialzero]

Don't worry baby is great! Both Alone albums are good but the second one is great! Sounds like the Weezer album I've been waiting for years.

I'm repeating myself but I must stress that I believe Make Believe sucked not beacause of the songs but because of the horrible sterile-clean supercompressed Rick Rubin production. I read that the band and Rubin had somekind of an argument or something during the making of Red Album and Rubin "stopped showing up". I hope they are no longer working together! Please, let it be so!

They are indeed no longer working with Rick. Thank God.

And I sort of agree on Make Believe. Their unofficial "5th member" Karl Koch said the songs were incredible, but then the structures kind of got beaten into the ground and on the final product, the sound was too stale compared to earlier versions.

It's also interesting that Rivers whittled away at a tracklist for this album for many many months only to have the other members bring back older, scrapped songs of his while he was away at college. I'll give them "Hold Me", "Perfect Situation", and "The Other Way" - nice choices - but then they brought back garbage like "We Are All On Drugs", "My Best Friend", "The Damage In Your Heart", "Haunt You Every Day", etc.

[Mr. Cohen]

For those who think "Beverly Hills" is Cuomo not caring:

Rivers Cuomo stated that "Beverly Hills" along with the solo, third verse, and last chorus of "Falling for You", are his proudest musical achievements: "Its incredibly fun: a great beat, guitar riffs, catchy vocal style. Besides that, I think the lyrics are incredible in a very understated way. I might as well enjoy my life and watch the stars play. I love it! With this one song we were able to transcend our little niche and connect with all kinds of people, young and old, from all kinds of backgrounds."

"I was at the opening of the new Hollywood Bowl and I flipped through the program and I saw a picture of Wilson Phillips. And for some reason I just thought how nice it would be to marry, like, an “established” celebrity and live in Beverly Hills and be part of that world. And it was a totally sincere desire. And then I wrote that song, Beverly Hills. For some reason, by the time it came out—and the video came out—it got twisted around into something that seemed sarcastic. But originally it wasn’t meant to be sarcastic at all."

I just don't get the Weezer love, or at least how people who are "music geeks" waste so much attention on them. Yeah, they did a few interesting things when they came out, but that's it. To me, now, they're just corporate rock. They keep the idea of their old aesthetic alive just enough to keep suckering in the alternative crowd. It's a marketing move and nothing else. They make some nice pop songs, don't get me wrong, but it's all (usually) quite vacuous. Cuomo is probably drinking cocktails with Chris Cornell right now and laughing at us all.

[Jonas]

Matt Sharp wasn't the reason Weezer were great. But he had a lot more to do with it then what it seems you're giving him credit for.

Their performances changed drastically when he left, he was the energy behind the band and it showed. Plus his vocals are MUCH better than anyone after him.

[runnersdialzero]

Matt Sharp wasn't the reason Weezer were great. But he had a lot more to do with it then what it seems you're giving him credit for.

Their performances changed drastically when he left, he was the energy behind the band and it showed. Plus his vocals are MUCH better than anyone after him.

Eh. He had character, but he was actually a very crummy bassist and was usually very flat when doing backup vocals. The guy was a total jackoff, at that - at a benefit show for three of their friends who had just died in a car accident, two of which ran the official Weezer fanclub back in the day, he intentionally played his bass out of tune for a fourth of "Only in Dreams" and drunkenly danced around like a total jackass when he wasn't playing bass. The guy is a douche - this is just one of many examples of the kind of person he was back then.

Don't get me wrong - I liked Matt when he was in the band, but I just hate the claims that, "WEEZER SUCKS BECAUSE MATT SHARP IS GONE." It's annoying and it's absolutely not true, what happened to Weezer was gonna happen regardless of if Matt Sharp was there or not.

And I think their performances started to go down the drain in the Maladroit era - check out some Green and pre-Green era shows, still a TON of energy, there. Their more recent performances haven't been too bad, either. I don't think they'll ever be back to where they used to be, but I think their music is beginning to get some of its balls back.

For those who think "Beverly Hills" is Cuomo not caring:

Hey, as sad as it is that he's that proud of "Beverly Hills", he at least names the solo/3rd verse/last chorus of "Falling For You" as one of his proudest moments, too. That IS the best thing the guy has ever put to tape, especially the 3rd verse. He hasn't totally lost his mind.

[Jonas]

It seems like its more of a personal problem, to be honest...

[Ptolemaios]

I’m laughing as I’m reading my old posts in this thread. I think I took Weezer’s creative decisions at the time a bit too seriously and personally.
By now I have renewed my faith in the band and have been enjoying what they are doing. I just bought Pinkerton Deluxe and Death to false metal and I think especially the latter is great. PD had too many boring acoustic live versions on it so I’m not very into it at the moment but it is good to have those b-sides and such on cd format. I'm looking forward to Alone III.

What do you think about these new releases?

P.s. Maybe we should start a new Weezer topic?