Weezer
Raditude
movethatjukebox.com / photo
With the release of Weezer’s seventh album, fans and critics alike are wondering what the heck is going on with the pop-rock nerds. Some audiences believe frontman Rivers Cuomo is ruining Weezer’s glory days of the 90s, when they made their most cherished works – 1994’s self-titled, fan-stamped Blue Album and 1996’s Pinkerton. Others believe Cuomo and company are just entertaining themselves by becoming pop music’s biggest practical joke. Something is definitely up when a band gets their own line of Snuggies and goes on AOL Sessions to perform with Kenny G. But here lies the brilliance of Weezer and their latest perplexing work, Raditude.
Musically, Raditude is like going to a dog show: you’ll enjoy the immediate experience, but after, you’ll want all that time back that you spent staring at promenading Shih Tzus. But culturally, Raditude is the most relevant collection of songs to hit the Internet since mash-up guru Girl Talk came onto the scene. By casting Cuomo as a tyrannical pop Rolodex who mixes hip-hop jargon with nerdy, hopelessly romantic fascinations, Weezer has become a symbol for the absurdities that come from the fast-paced nature of Internet buzz.
“Can’t Stop Partying” is the best example, which features superstar mixtape prince Lil Wayne and also features the Jermaine Dupri co-written line, “I gotta have Patron, I gotta have the beat, I gotta have a lot of pretty girls around me.” Another song, “I’m Your Daddy,” is a playful ode to the feisty nature of pet names. It’s also discomforting to think of Cuomo being called daddy by anything – female friend, biological offspring, or adopted pet. Other songs sound like Cuomo experiments, such as the use of a sitar (“Love Is The Answer”), a rambling piano-driven ditty (“Run Over By A Truck”) and the one song which reveals some of the frayed ends of 90s Weezer (“The Prettiest Girl In The Whole Wide World”).
All of the songs on Raditude are typical Cuomo: three-minute, verse-chorus-verse songs – a structure that keeps things marginally simple, catchy, and recognizable as music by Weezer. But Raditude’s biggest achievement, beyond the raw music, is that it asks the question of whether it is an artist’s responsibility to progress according to what their audience sees as fit. In the 21st century thus far, the artist has had very little control over how their music is experienced and received as an art form. It is the audience, not the record labels, that have viciously devalued music through blog hype, offensive criticism, and illegal file sharing. Thus, with the release of Raditude, Weezer becomes one of the few bands that is using the medium of the web to boost their relevancy by giving listeners exactly what they deserve: an album that mirrors the focus and off-color humor of its jaded, severely entitled listeners.
Julian Casablancas
Phrazes For The Young
bbc.co.uk / photo
Julian Casablancas, along with his golden boy quintet The Strokes, helped define this generation’s perception of rock music and further New York’s reign as the premier haven for hipsters worldwide. Starting in 2001, their legendarily hyped EP, The Modern Age, was followed by their seminal album, Is This It?, which led The Strokes to become one of this decade’s most popular bands. Consequently, this hype that The Strokes stirred up created a new archetype for buzzed-about bands in the digital age.
Unfortunately for Casablancas, that same early hype has seen critics and fans putting his band under a constant cultural microscope. His first album apart from The Strokes, Phrazes For The Young, has had people hoping he would write another Is This It? But the solo work is far from the minimalist aesthetics displayed on The Strokes’ debut. Phrazes For The Young finds Casablancas fighting to stay relevant, tapping electronic over analog sound, and substituting Los Angeles glitz for New York grit. “11th Dimension,” the most accessible song of the batch, is also Casablancas at his finest in poise and harmony. Amidst the keyboard-guitar battle royale, a newly magnanimous Casablancas croons, “Forgive them even if they aren’t sorry.” Perhaps he is referring to his bandmates, drummer Fabrizio Morretti, guitarist Albert Hammond Jr., and bassist Nikolai Fraiture, who have all released material through projects external of Casablancas’ creative monarchy of The Strokes.
Other songs off the eight-song album are interesting, but would be unrecognizable to many a Strokes fan. “Ludlow St.” is a bluesy recognition of the perils related to substance abuse – a playful autobiographical song, since Casablancas has recently dropped the sauce and cigs. “Left & Right in the Dark” is a jaunty, retrospective narrative that emulates the Moog sounds of synth pioneer Wendy Carlos. There are also a couple major failures with “River of Breaklights” and “Tourists,” songs that are choppy and aimless despite being over five minutes long. While the majority of albums produced today definitely have their misses, these songs are indicators that Casablancas’ intuition can flunk hard – something fans may have only gained a glimpse of on The Strokes’ last album, First Impressions of Earth. Phrazes For The Young confirms that Casablancas is still overflowing with creativity; however, his greatest successes will always be with The Strokes.
Download These Songs:
Spider Bags – “It Always Loved To Happen”
jeremymlange.com / photo
The North Carolina rockers channel the best of Bruce Springsteen and the 90s indie music scene to create a bouncy, nostalgic track about midlife crises. Their mix of rock without frills and Southeastern country tendencies make this one something you and your trucker uncle can jam to. For fans of the Hold Steady and Pete Yorn.
No Age – “Losing Feeling”
Los Angeles punk duo No Age releases their first thrash-heavy record off their latest EP with the same title. The song features drummer Dean Spunt’s stunted high-pitched vocals embedded within stacks of razor sharp guitars. Anyone who enjoys making a mess will like making confetti rain to this.
popmatters.com / photo
Devendra Banhart – “Baby”
Those looking for some new Jack Johnson to soothe during study breaks may find solitude in this veteran freak folk songwriter from Los Angeles. Banhart plucks at a twangy guitar while sashaying lightly through words as if singing to infants. Wear your bathrobe and slippers for this one.
Subscribe
So … you’re saying we suck as music listeners and fans, and so in response Weezer gave us the sucky album we deserve?
Weezer’s fan base does not suck. But they are demanding like most fans of bands that have released classic albums.
What makes this album so brilliant is that Rivers Cuomo isn’t really doing anything different from prior works- he’s still devoted to tacky songs that are catchy and simple. But he knew people would not like this album, not because it is “sucky” but because fans, with their “authoritative” blogs, feel they deserve a “Weezer sounding album.” Why can’t they be excited about perfectly legitimate pop songs that include themes these same fans obsess about on the Internet? Irony. Sarcasm. Snuggies?
It’s the exploitation of these long-held, unrealistic expectations that fans have of bands releasing new albums that Cuomo and Weezer are getting at. After all, there are some harsh things said about these artists who put a lot into these albums. On top of that, few people still buy music. There is no indication that Weezer put forth less effort into ‘Raditude’ than any of their other works, but fans see it that way because it isn’t what they expected or wanted.
That being said, whether or not you like ‘Raditude,’ Weezer is keeping it fun. And despite all the things I said about Weezer fans, there are many fans who do appreciate this album.