Writing about Weezer, at one time one of my favorite bands around, has become an exercise in frustration of late. There will always be a struggle between those who tolerate their recent releases and those who think they haven’t put out a good record since Pinkerton. I lie somewhere in the middle, enjoying most of Weezer (Green Album) and songs here and there on Maladroit and Make Believe. With a new album, Hurley (yes, it’s a reference to the dude from Lost), due out next month, those struggles will no doubt resurface; in fact, the premier of its first single has kick started my indigestion.
As Weezer has aged, they seem to have become less introspective and more “of the moment.” It seems that Weezer (Blue Album) and Pinkerton were mass therapy sessions for front man Rivers Cuomo, and singing about inattentive fathers and unrequited love provided the band with some of its best music. With his demons expelled, Cuomo turned Weezer (Green Album) into a set of formulaic but wholly enjoyable pop songs. With the passing of the years, though, it looks like Rivers doesn’t have much to look back on but his own fame.
“Memories,” like “Beverly Hills” and “Pork and Beans” before it, is about the band’s affinity for being famous and goofing around, and while one of these songs can be excused as a send up of the rock and roll lifestyle, nearly three albums’ worth of lyrics like “pissing in plastic cups before we went on stage” rings of pomposity. It’s an appropriate song title given that the band has been around for 16 years, but the content doesn’t carry any weight and instead feels like Rivers isn’t even trying anymore. That fact that he opts to speak only slightly melodically instead of actually singing doesn’t help.
I’ve excused Weezer’s downward slide for too long, going so far as to buy every full album up to last year’s Raditude, but if the band seems content to continue in this direction, I might finally be content to thank them for the memories and see my way out.