Weezer - The Red Album

If you were to apply the tenets of Bauhaus architecture - that form of a work should ease people into what said work’s function is - to pop music, Weezer would stand as one of its greatest progenitors. Their form is creating simple, unabashedly catchy songs with the as-to-be-expected function of maintaining and hopefully growing their rabid fan base.

I don’t necessarily think that they would argue this point with me either. From the opening riffs of “My Name Is Jonas” (the first track on their self-titled debut) to the baleful hums that close out “The Angel And The One”, the final track on this latest self-titled effort, every song is easy to grab a hold of, sing along to and unobtrusively turn into background noise when you can’t decide on anything else to listen to. It’s the aural equivalent of comfort food.

There’s a lot of theorists out there who don’t see this is as much of a bad thing - musicians only survive if they make money, the only way to make money in music is to write a hit song or three, therefore musicians should write hit songs. I’m not necessarily going to debate that either, considering the fact that there are a number of Weezer songs that I actually think pretty highly of (“Undone - The Sweater Song”, “Hash Pipe”, the entirety of Pinkerton) and that I don’t want to begrudge anyone success in a slowly dying music industry.

What I will argue though is that at this point in the band’s almost 15-year existence, it seems to be coming a little too easily for them. To continue with my architectural example, by the time Frank Lloyd Wright had achieved godlike status in the eyes of his peers and critics, starting to get sloppy in his work. One house that Wright constructed had so many flaws in its construction that the balconies started to buckle under their own weight.

Much like that building, Weezer has reached the point in their career that they feel that any half-hearted song they decide to release is pure gold, and no one seems to be willing to tell them otherwise. That seems the only excuse for letting the pedantic, genre-hopping exercise “The Greatest Man That Ever Lived” or the absolutely painful lyrics that front man Rivers Cuomo rushed out for “Heart Songs”:

Quiet Riot got me started
With the bangin’ of my head
Iron Maiden, Judas Priest and Slayer
Taught me how to shred

Strangely, it’s only us critics who are going to cry foul when it comes to Weezer’s failings as a band. Their fans and supporters seem simply happy to get something new from them. It is the aural equivalent of comfort food - something to turn to when you can’t handle something new or unusual or challenging. It’s musical macaroni and cheese, tuna noodle casserole, pork and beans.

My simple question for fans and the band is: don’t you want anything more? Wouldn’t you like to see the band tear down the dull, faceless facade they have built around themselves and build back better? From where this critic sits, I can only hope that the answer is a resounding, pleading “Yes.”