Weezer's 'Maladroit' - WTF?

the point being that at some point we'll have a whole weezer album about falling leaves to look forward to.

Tracks American Gigolo: One of my favorite songs on the album. Very rockin. Dope Nose: A little to much pop for me, but still a decent song. Keep Kishin: Nice drums but still a bit to much pop. Still pretty cool. Take Control: Very good song, but sort of lame guitar solo. Death and Destruction: A cool slow rocker that sort of sucks you up in it. Slob: Another one of my favorites on Maladroit. Very cool lyrics and some awesome guitar work. Burnt Jamb: But another excellent song. Has a very nice groove and some sweet electric guitar. Space Rock: One of the more annoying songs on the album but still decent. Slave: Cool beginning but sort of lame lyrics and melodies rest of it. Still a nice song. Fall Together: The best song on the album. This is a awesome song that is very very rockin. Possibilities: A good song to listen to driving down the road on a warm summer day. Love Explosion: Cool melodies and lyrics. A fun song to listen to. December: A nice little gem at the end of the album. Best line of the album,"Only trust can inspire soggy lungs to breath fire".

"Rivers Cuomo stares at the screen of his laptop, its glow reflected in the lenses of his black-rimmed glasses. 'Want to see my list,' he asks, and boots up an elaborate color-coded spreadsheet that catalogs all the songs he's written in the past three and a half years. Scrolling down, he shows off the latest entry - number 377. There's pride in his voice, but he seems more excited about the spreadsheet than the prolificacy it documents.

This isn't the only chart he's kept: A few years ago, he started keeping a notebook of every song Kurt Cobain wrote. In it, he dissected the songs in as mathematical a manner as he could. 'He figured if he could home in on Kurt's formula, he'd figure out his own formula,' says Todd Sullivan, Weezer's A & R man. 'That way, he would be a never-ending supply of songs.'

'It wasn't only Nirvana,' Cuomo says, 'but also Oasis and Green Day.' He still keeps a three-ring binder he calls 'The Encyclopedia of Pop,' full of his analysis of different artists. 'I'm probably just a natural-born scientist. I like taking notes and analyzing things.'"

Something like this was CENTRAL to my theory. Maybe I'll still write it down but stupid Rolling Stone took all the fun away.

Sounds like the start of a porn novel.

Heh heh heh. See, here's my question, a very honest one -- is the methodology at fault when it comes to such song creation, or is it just simply a matter of what the end results are regardless of said songs' creation, no matter who the creator? I'd argue it was the latter situation.

As I said above, I don't think you should like the songs just because of his goofy ass way of making them. I do think it gives us something interesting to think about. Most of the songs on the last two albums sound to me like faulty copies of the kind of ideal modern rock pop song that Weezer, Green Day, Nirvana, et al were putting out in the nineties. Flawed, because in most of them something's not quite right. I don't know what it would be like to hear one of these on the radio, and think it was from an anonymous band. I think the new Weezer songs actually have less of a personal touch than even some of the very formulaic or conventional songs that might come from those anonymous bands who just happen to hit on the right ingredients that one time. It's very hard for me to tell, though, between not having heard the songs anonymously, and having them come from Weezer, who I expect at least some personal touch from.

I haven't said anything about why a personal touch is so great, etc etc, but I don't feel like it right now. Part of my theory had something to do about how getting rid of himself and building songs out of idealized parts stolen from other songs was a very canny thing to do to get back on the radio, and that the reason Weezer can do that so well is that he's a really talented songwriter (yes, he used his cut-it-open-and-take-it-apart method, but he knew what to do with the parts.

I knew there was something missing.

Sounds about right, or at least I can't think of any other immediate rephrasing that would change that meaning. My reaction to Cuomo's approach isn't to say, "Ah, he's doing that, therefore it must be good by default" so much as it is, "I'm perversely impressed he's trying something so ridiculously obsessive -- hey, if he's happy, I guess." My thought is, it doesn't matter if he's done some ultimate meta- analysis of said songs in ways that would put most math-rock types to shame or just woke up and strummed out something. Both methods can produce worthy results and are not in and of themselves a problematic way of doing things (along with many other methods), because they're just that, approaches, and we could say that about any band or songwriter or whatever. I just want something to listen to that I enjoy!

Weezer trip up for me on that front since they are anonymous to me all around -- they've always struck me as a terribly bland band, doggedly competent but not in any way remarkable, rather like the Strokes. There's not much for me to outright hate ("Buddy Holly" is the big exception, though -- bah), but there's zilch for me to love, and even the Strokes have "Last Night." That Pinkerton seems to have become a The Queen is Dead or Louder Than Bombs for a new American generation in terms of sheer obsession combined with its influence on a slew of newer bands is interesting to me because I certainly would not have expected that when it came out, to be sure. So I can see why you and many other fans were awaiting the green album and then this one with huge anticipation, and you're sounding like every Star Wars fan who hated The Phantom Menace when it came out, getting barking mad with what happened and accusing a valued creator of giving into too much technology and cold-hearted construction for the sake of sales. ;-)

Flawed, because in most of them something's not quite right.

But what is that that isn't right? You mention a 'personal touch,' but how would you define it? This isn't so much a question about why a personal touch is great per se, you already acknowledged that part of your explanation, but what that personal touch exactly is, for Weezer if not for a universal approach.

I think part of the reason it upsets me is connected to what's wrong with the results of his system. I don't think it has to result in the elimination of all the personal stuff. I think Cuomo has used it as a way to turn out songs that come close in a sense to the kind he can write when he lets himself in. Maybe it's all connected to how well Pinketron did, and he's just worried about using songwriting as an outlet for personal expression - he doesn't want to do that and be rejected again, and he doesn't want to do that and hurt his listeners (the broader group of them) by possibly giving them another bitter record. Or maybe he has other reasons for wanting to shut himself off from his songs. (From what I've read it seems like he's fucked up enough to have those other reasons in spades.) Either way, his system lets him make songs that sound in all other respects a lot like his old songs, and I think it does so because it basically gives him a way of applying his songwriting talent divorced from its 'natural' setting, i.e. the one where he would be possibly expressing his feelings, revealing himself, etc.

I wish you had picked a record not by the Smiths so I might have known something about it! As is I can't say anything about your comparison.

I'll try not to put it off so long that I don't answer you, but I have to think more before I explain this personal touch crap. It's complicated!

"too pop"
lol

"Keep Fishin'" ia awez

only 6 more years and we'll have the red Weezer album.

― Sean Carruthers, Sunday, June 2, 2002 12:00 AM (7 years ago) Bookmark

ooooweeeeoooo

holy shit the release date was June 3! Off by a DAY

WAU

6/2/02 never forget

"Keep Fishin'" ia awez

― and the ugly girls, too (Tape Store), Saturday, July 11, 2009 12:32 PM Bookmark

^

I'm predicting yellow self-titled June 3, 2014.

Looking at their past performance I would have said June 2015, but what the hell.

Shoulda stuck with 2015.

this album is secretly a minor classic. especially slob.

CHEESE
SMELLS SO GOOD
ON A BURNT
PIECE OF LAMB
FAG
OF THE YEAR
WHO COULD BEAT
UP YOUR MAN

Personally I think the armadillos who carry cheese sandwiches wrote the album and got Cuomo to add his name to it through Chinese brick torture (a lot like water torture but more effective - and quicker - although potentially more lethal).Personally I think the armadillos who carry cheese sandwiches wrote the album and got Cuomo to add his name to it through Chinese brick torture (a lot like water torture but more effective - and quicker - although potentially more lethal).Personally I think the armadillos who carry cheese sandwiches wrote the album and got Cuomo to add his name to it through Chinese brick torture (a lot like water torture but more effective - and quicker - although potentially more lethal).Personally I think the armadillos who carry cheese sandwiches wrote the album and got Cuomo to add his name to it through Chinese brick torture (a lot like water torture but more effective - and quicker - although potentially more lethal).Personally I think the armadillos who carry cheese sandwiches wrote the album and got Cuomo to add his name to it through Chinese brick torture (a lot like water torture but more effective - and quicker - although potentially more lethal).Personally I think the armadillos who carry cheese sandwiches wrote the album and got Cuomo to add his name to it through Chinese brick torture (a lot like water torture but more effective - and quicker - although potentially more lethal).Personally I think the armadillos who carry cheese sandwiches wrote the album and got Cuomo to add his name to it through Chinese brick torture (a lot like water torture but more effective - and quicker - although potentially more lethal).Personally I think the armadillos who carry cheese sandwiches wrote the album and got Cuomo to add his name to it through Chinese brick torture (a lot like water torture but more effective - and quicker - although potentially more lethal).Personally I think the armadillos who carry cheese sandwiches wrote the album and got Cuomo to add his name to it through Chinese brick torture (a lot like water torture but more effective - and quicker - although potentially more lethal).Personally I think the armadillos who carry cheese sandwiches wrote the album and got Cuomo to add his name to it through Chinese brick torture (a lot like water torture but more effective - and quicker - although potentially more lethal).Personally I think the armadillos who carry cheese sandwiches wrote the album and got Cuomo to add his name to it through Chinese brick torture (a lot like water torture but more effective - and quicker - although potentially more lethal).

Oh my god, that was a sexual album

WAITING FOR
LITTLE CLUES
TO APPEAR
THAT I DRANK
SOME OF GRAN
DADDY'S BEER

WHEN
YOU'RE ON YOUR OWN
YOU CAN SEE

THINGS