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I'll Party By Myself Because I'm Such A Special Guy
Weezer "Troublemaker" - I'll never understand why people are so hard on Rivers Cuomo. Since Weezer emerged from their post-Pinkerton hiatus, the guy cannot escape the constant bitching of his fanbase, and it's just ridiculous given the fact that he can be relied upon to knock out at least two or three full-on power pop classics on every Weezer release. Granted, any complaints about the quality of Weezer's records since 1996 are valid -- they've all been uneven, but to focus on the consistency of the band's albums misses the point in an enormous way. As I wrote back in 2005:
Weezer is a singles band. It doesn't really matter if they put filler on their albums because it's all about the songs that will end up on their greatest hits collection, and that will inevitably become the best record in their discography. Watching their career unfold is basically like getting the best power pop cd ever slowly doled out over an installment plan.The other thing that people seem to forget is that Weezer is never supposed to be cool, and that since day one, their brand has been about embracing whatever might make "cool kids" feel uncomfortable. Their tactics shift with the times: You're all gonna be rockers? Well, we'll be dorks. You're all gonna sing cryptic lyrics? Well, we're gonna overshare about our obsession with young Asian girls. You're all gonna be dorks? Well, we'll be rockers. You're all inching up to your 30s and feeling anxious about adulthood? Well, we're gonna embrace aging and do the whole "rock and roll dad" thing. That contrarian attitude is crucial to the band's enduring commercial success -- by rebelling against hipness, they tap into a mutant strain of populism.
So yes, The Red Album is uneven. Of course it is. The first three songs -- "Troublemaker," "The Greatest Man That Ever Lived," and "Pork & Beans" -- are absolutely amazing, and rate in the highest percentile of Weezer tunes. "Dreamin'" and "Everybody Get Dangerous" are solid, respectable album tracks. "Heart Songs" is on the fence -- it's dorky, sappy, and insipid to such an extreme that it seems purposefully designed to make Pitchfork readers cry tears of blood, but it's sorta pleasant. The big problem is that -- FOR SOME REASON -- Cuomo decided to let the other guys in the band write and/or sing their own songs, and they are just so so bad. So so so so so so bad. Nevertheless, it doesn't really change anything about that opening trio, and why should it? They are essentially a mini-album unto themselves; a song cycle about rock stardom, or perhaps more specifically, Rivers Cuomo's rock stardom. It starts off with a number that comes across as the secret origin of Weezer, climaxes with a deeply ironic multi-part rock epic about the joyous arrogance of fame set to the tune of a Shaker hymn expressing a profound humility, and resolves with a self-deprecating rocker about recommitting to the notion of embracing a dorky non-conformity. It's a pretty awesome 1-2-3, and really, any more Weezer songs of that caliber on the album would be surplus to my requirements.
Like many songs before it, "Troublemaker" imagines success and fame as a way out of stifling conformity, but it is skewed by the singer's acute self-awareness and a naked desire for validation. Though most of the lyrics are focused on insisting that he's a bad-ass maverick, it's really a song about a guy who feels some pretty intense sexual anxiety, and is willing to do whatever it takes to make himself feel attractive. He doesn't even seem to be all that interested in sex as anything but a stepping stone to validation: "I'm gonna be a star / and people will crane necks / to get a glimpse of me / and see if I am having sex." Unsurprisingly, the song ends with the singer imagining a life as a glamorous recluse, with all the privilege, excess, and recognition of stardom, but without any of the, y'know, human interaction. It's a ultimately a funny light-hearted song, but mainly because it's easy to recognize the crazy ol' Rivers who pops up in interviews and magazine profiles in its words. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)
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