Say It Ain't So

As a follow up to a recent post about things I’ve never gotten over, I give you, perhaps the on thing I’ll never ever get over. So with out further ado…

Weezer Fall: Listen, no matter who you are at some point in your life you loved Weezer. The blue album is probably the best power pop album of the 90’s. And Pinkerton, the defining album of my high school years, is the best melancholy/emo* album not put out by the Cure or the Smiths. Whether you got off on the catchy radio hits or the edgy pseudo-Pixies songs they did, you loved Weezer at some point and time. Then they fell off the face of the earth. And years later, like the Phoenix they rose again.
They returned by releasing the Green album. It was kinda of fun and catchy, but horribly flawed. But we (I say we b/c I refuse to belief that I was the only one who felt or did these things.) ignored the generic, uninspired lyrics and the never ending verse solos because we were all happy to have Weezer back in our lives. We rationalized the fact that they never played Pinkerton songs live by saying that they were just fronting their new album. We looked the other way as Rivers Cumo started showing up on magazine covers like Tiger Beat and Teen Vouge. We all told ourselves that redemption would come in their new album.
Then Maladroit came out. It wasn’t bad, and it wasn’t great, it just was. There were a few stand out songs, but for the most part the album just didn’t do anything. It was obvious to anyone who for some odd reason wasn’t in love with the Weezer of yesteryears, that the band was done trying to experiment musically. And that their main influence had shifted from the Pixies to the Foo Fighters. Yet still we held out hope, hope that one day the real Weezer return and they’d start making good music again. And then the band came out with Make Believe, and by doing so caused anyone who actually liked Weezer for their good music to loose all faith in them. This album, which sucks more sh*t then I care to think about, was like a cock-slap to the face of all their fans who wanted to believe that their two post-Pinkerton albums were just flukes or growing pains. The first time I heard that Beverly Hills was a Weezer song, I thought it was a joke. I thought for sure that Simple Plan or SR-71 had ambushed the band in the recording studio and then put out their new album under the moniker of Weezer. This song is probably the worst radio hit since O.M.C.’s How Bizzare or Deep Blue Something’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Or any song by Lit and the Offspring, who I think were actually the same band, but that’s a topic for another day. Make Believe caps off Weezer’s fall from greatness. It’s like Nero reign in Rome or Dwight Gooden’s career after he got busted for coke, things will never be the same. And now they’ve put out their new single “Everyone’s on Drugs”, which is about as enjoyable as constantly re-watching the Passions of the Christ. How far Weezer has fallen is definitely on the list of things I’ll never get over. To make matters worse I’m pretty sure I’ll be saying/thinking something very similar to this on Modest Mouse in 3-5 years.

Until We Meet Again

*I don’t mean emo in the sh*t-eating whinny Dashboard sense, but in the actually good musically and lyrically sense. Hopefully you’re not a dumb sh*t and you understand what I’m talking about.