19. Weezer--Weezer (Blue Album)
# 19: Weezer--Weezer (Blue Album) (1994)
Top-Notch Tracks: "In the Garage," "The World Has Turned and Left Me Here," Buddy Holly," "Undone (The Sweater Song,)" "My Name Is Jonas," "Say It Ain't So"
Album Depth: "Surf Wax America," "Holiday," "Only In Dreams"
Weak Links: None
Problematic Song (Maybe): "No One Else"
Stand-Out Lyrics: "I've got a Dungeon Master's Guide. I've got a twelve-sided die. I've got Kitty Pryde and Nightcrawler too, waiting there for me. Yes, I do. I do."--"In the Garage"
"I talked for hours to your wallet photograph, and you just listened. You laughed enchanted by my intellect, or maybe you didn't."--"The World Has Turned and Left Me Here"
"I look just like Buddy Holly. Oh, oh, and you're Mary Tyler Moore. I don't care what they say about us, anyway. I don't care 'bout that."--"Buddy Holly"
"If you want to destroy my sweater, hold this thread as I walk away. Watch me unravel, I'll soon be naked. Lying on the floor, I come undone."--"Undone (The Sweater Song)"
"The choo-choo train left right on time. A ticket costs only your mind."--"My Name Is Jonas"
"Flip on the telly, wrestle with Jimmy."--"Say It Ain't So"
"You take your car to work, I'll take my board. And when you're out of fuel, I'm still afloat."--"Surf Wax America"
"Don't bother to pack your bags, or your map, we won't need them where we're going."--"Holiday"
"You can't avoid her. She's in the air, in between molecules of oxygen and carbon dioxide."--"Only In Dreams"
"She laughs at most everything, whether it's funny or not."--"No One Else"
"I've got posters on the wall--my favorite rock group, KISS. I've got Ace Frehley, I've got Peter Criss, waiting there for me. Yes, I do. I do."--"In the Garage"
"Do you believe what I sing now?"--"The World Has Turned and Left Me Here"
Album cover: 6 out of 10. When the album was released, this cover was pretty darn great--a simple picture of four guys with a blue background. But then, the group decided to recreate the cover with different colored backgrounds, resulting in self-titled albums known as "The Green Album," "The Red Album," and "The Teal Album," which weren't as clever as they thought they were and cheapened the effect of this debut album cover. (It might have been an 8 if not for these knockoff follow-ups.)
Comments: Nerd rock. Weezer has been described as nerd rock. I'm a nerd. I like rock. Is it any surprise I like Weezer?
I first heard Weezer on the radio. I thought "Undone (The Sweater Song)" was a bit unusual, but it was also kind of catchy. And then "Buddy Holly" started to hit, with its accompanying "Happy Days" video, and it was a no-brainer that I had to buy the album. (The best part of the video? Little Opie Cunningham's "Stay tuned for more "Happy Days" voice-over.)
So, I bought the cd, put it in the machine, hit play, and was greeted by a wall of guitars at the beginning of "My Name Is Jonas." As the album went on, I found myself liking every damn song. And then, for the clincher, "In the Garage" talks about Nightcrawler, Kitty Pryde, and KISS posters on the wall! Sure, I never had a garage growing up, and I was always more of a Ben Grimm, Sue Storm kind of guy. And it was an ELO spaceship poster I had on my wall, but I got the gist. These guys were nerds AND these guys could rock!
When I found out the album was produced by Ric Ocasek I thought, well that makes sense. Ric knows a thing or two about making sensational debut albums. Wikipedia makes a big deal about some kind of innovation where they made the bass and lead guitar into a "single ten-stringed instrument." I don't know exactly what that means, but I definitely like the sound of it.
I liked this album so much that I eagerly awaited their next album. "Pinkerton" was initially a disappointment with critics and the audience, but in time it got the reputation of being an underappreciated classic with a lot of fans. I am not one of them. To me it remains a subpar album and is the main reason I didn't become a gotta-buy-everything-they-put-out Weezer fan. Oh, I've bought a few more of their albums over the years, and I've liked several more of their songs, but none of them can compare to the simple brilliance of that debut album. It's damn near perfect.
Looking back, the only real flaw I see is the song "No One Else." If it's a parody of a creepy guy who wants total control of his girlfriend, it's pretty fun. If it's a straight-up telling of how singer-songwriter Rivers Cuomo actually thinks, it's pretty darn sad and a bit off-putting. Either way, though, it's a good nerd rock song.
(For the record, I was totally unfamiliar with the term "incel" until long after I was married. But, despite the fact that I was a 40 year-old virgin, I never even remotely considered myself "involuntarily celibate," because I knew if I really wanted to, I could find a girl who would want to be with me. But I thought it best to wait until I found someone who I wanted to be with, too.)
One more thing about Weezer. I find it difficult to think of the band's name without also thinking of George Jefferson's wife, Weezi. Moving on up, indeed!
Up next: J. R. R. Tolkien or Muhammad Ali?
I had never listened to this album all the way through before. I had heard the singles on the radio, and I had really enjoyed the Happy Days treatment on the "Buddy Holly" video when it was playing on the MTV. Fonzie dancing at the end is the best part for me. But I did not follow Weezer through the years, so when they came out with the remake of Toto's "Africa," the first time I heard it on the radio I thought, "Aren't these the guys that sang that Buddy Holly song?" I really enjoyed watching their Africa video because they got Weird Al to do it. But what I didn't realize until I watched the original video for "Undone--The Sweater Song" is that the "Africa" video is basically a remake of their "Undone" video.
ReplyDeleteI didn't know that Ric Ocasek produced the album, but after listening to the music and the lyrics, I can see a strong connection with the kind of songs that he wrote for The Cars. And while I will give the bad credit for putting together an awesome performance on this album, I tend to want to give Ric the credit for making it a top-tier debut album. Without Ric, I don't think they would have done as well.
In regards to the "problem" lyrics of "No One Else," I think the lyrics are actually spot on with the way that it represents how love-starved nerds feel when they finally find a girl that they like that likes them back--which is extremely possessive, because they know how rare it will be in their lives to find a girl that likes them and will laugh at their goofiness. I remember in high school that I loved to make the girls that I liked laugh uncontrollably. There was something about knowing that I'd made them laugh that made me feel really good. But if I ever saw them laugh at something some other boy said to them--oh, how I hated that! I only wanted those girls to laugh at the stuff I said. Let me put it this way--if I made a girl laugh, I felt pretty damn good, but if that girl then turned around and laughed at something Doug Armstrong said, that not only negated the good feelings about her laughing at my goofiness, it made me hate Doug Armstrong all the more. Of course, I already hated him for other reasons--mostly the fact that he was my cousin on Grandma Bunny's side of the family, and I didn't like Grandma Bunny at all. Anyway, my point is that I understand the feeling behind those lyrics, and there's a genuineness to that feeling that makes it actually one of my favorite songs on the album.
So, to sum up, I'm a jealous nerd.
Nardo