Artist – Album: Weezer - Weezer
Released: 10th
May 1994
Sounds Like: Speccy Power Pop
See how gawky Rivers Cuomo and pals look there on the cover to their
debut album. It’s hard to picture four more awkward poses; they’re hardly the
Ramones are they? Of course, since finding fame Weezer have fully embraced
their geek rock image, sporting thick rimmed glasses and rocking out with the
Muppets, but back in 1994 they were just uncomfortable, nerdy young men.
However ill at ease they may have appeared on the artwork, they
certainly didn’t sound it on the album’s 10 tracks. With a fantastic recipe of
Pixies style loud-soft dynamics and Raspberries, Big Star and Cheap Trick
tinged 70’s power pop, the group rocked out and enjoyed it in a way that not
many in the grunge era were capable of. They brought back blistering solos and
sunny harmonies and they did it proudly and confidently. The lyrics hinted at
their geekdom – references to Dungeons and Dragons, Buddy Holly and confessions like
“In the garage, I feel safe, no one cares about my ways” – but throughout
Rivers Cuomo exudes self-assurance, as if he knows that they sound awesome. And
they do. ‘My Name is Jonas’, ‘No One Else’ and ‘The World Has Turned
and Left Me Here’ is a phenomenal opening trio, and the fourth song, the
classic ‘Buddy Holly’, betters even them. ‘Say It Ain’t So’ was
one of my all time favourites when I was younger, whilst ‘In the Garage’, ‘Holiday’
and ‘Only in Dreams’ lend the tail end of the album a perfect,
wistful edge.
What’s perhaps surprising is that such an incredible, rightly lauded
mid 90s album, one which is really quite simplistic in its use of big dumb
power chords and which follows basic verse chorus verse structures, hasn’t been
matched, or even come close to, by many
albums since it’s release. It appears the boys are as clever (and dorky) as
they look.
Albumaday... rating:
9/10
1. My
Name is Jonas – 3:24
2. No
One Else – 3:04
3. The
World Has Turned and Left Me Here – 4:19
4. Buddy
Holly – 2:39
5. Undone
– The Sweater Song – 5:05
6. Surf
Wax America – 3:06
7. Say
It Ain’t So – 4:18
8. In
the Garage – 3:55
9. Holiday
– 3:24
10. Only
in Dreams – 7:59
Listen to ‘My Name is
Jonas’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbwI2-nJ0Tw
Also released on the 10th May:
1993: Blur – Modern Life is Rubbish
|
Also released on the 10th May:
2004: Keane – Hopes and Fears
|
Also released on the 10th May:
2010: The National – High Violet
|
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