Tag Archives: weezer

#1053: Weezer – Pork and Beans

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Gonna cast my mind back all the way to 2008. Let’s see. For the first few months of it, I was 12. Then I turned 13. In my second year of secondary school. No longer a junior and old enough to pick on the new first years who came in. I never did that though. I take no delight in those kinds of things. A lot of time was spent playing FIFA 08 on the PS2, even though the PS3 was very much a thing and an item that was quite affordable. My music taste was still very much under the influence of what I saw on TV and to a lesser extent in the charts. But by that year I was already a firm fan of Weezer, owning physical copies of the Blue Album and Pinkerton and enjoying their music videos whenever they showed up on MTV or other channels of the like. So I was really excited when the Red Album was coming around. Was the first album in three years since Make Believe which, unbeknownst to me at the time, had received the worst reception of any Weezer record to date. It carried on the colour theme after Blue and Green. Things could only go up from here. And just a few weeks after my 13th birthday, ‘Pork and Beans’ was released as the big return, the first single off the new album.

I can’t remember where or when I heard the track for the very first time. I’ve known the track and become so familiar with it at this point, it just sort of feels like it’s been around since before I was born. I have this small memory of a guy in my class bringing in his phone one day and me getting really excited that he had ‘Pork and Beans’ on there. I don’t think he even knew what it was or who it was by, and probably downloaded it because it was a popular song. Really, my hype for the track rising to an all-time high when the music video finally became available on this rising video website called YouTube, and was soon playing on MTV2 as a result. The music video contains all of these Internet personalities and OG meme people and was a huge attention-grabber at the time, but is incredibly dated looking at it 15 years on. I however had no idea who any of the people in there were apart from maybe Tay Zonday, the Numa Numa guy and the Leave Britney alone man. But they all didn’t matter. What did was that Weezer was back, and at the very least it rocked a lot harder than the last time the first single was released from one of their albums.

An executive at Geffen Records told Rivers Cuomo and the rest of the band that they needed to record more commercial material one day. Feeling somewhat annoyed and insulted by the suggestion, he was inspired to write a new song which in turn became ‘Pork and Beans’. Cuomo addresses having to deal with getting older, working out at the gym, putting Rogaine in his hair and the pressures of writing that perfect pop song to dominate the music charts. But considering all this, he tells the listener that, really, once he thinks about all of these things, he’s just going to do what he wants to do, he hasn’t got anything to prove and he’ll just continue on his merry way without considering what outsiders think about him. Was very close to just typing out the lyrics in the chorus to you, but it couldn’t be explained any simpler than how it’s sung during those moments. And speaking of the chorus, it’s such a great singalong section. I mean, any chorus has to be one of those. But this one in particular’s led by a greatly memorable melody accompanied by crunchy guitars and confident rhythm section. I don’t know what it was about producer Jacknife Lee in 2007/08, but a lot of bands wanted his hands on their records, and one thing I’ve noticed listening to his productions of that era is that he could make guitars sound machines and I think that also comes into great effect on this track. The Red Album is probably seen as fairly average Weezer album in terms of their group’s whole discography, but ‘Pork and Beans’ is a damn good track. To this day, probably still one of my favourite Weezer singles.

#1040: Weezer – Pink Triangle

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So today’s track is number 1040 is this long series, but really it should be more. There have been a few occasions where I’ve missed some songs out and have had to hastily slot some paragraphs for them in larger posts in order to represent them. One thing’s for sure is that this should be #1041, because only a few weeks ago I realised I missed out Weezer’s ‘No Other One’ from the listings. I actually really like that song too, and I feel like I said to myself that I would go back to it at the time. But I didn’t, and now we’re in this situation. To keep things simple, it’s a great number – one about being with a lady who’s no good for you, but don’t want to leave because of the fear of being alone for the rest of your life. Big thumbs up from me.

‘Pink Triangle’, like ‘No Other One’ – also on Weezer’s Pinkerton, is another track on the album detailing a moment in River Cuomo’s desperate search for true love while being a ’90s rockstar and having a tremendously painful procedure on his leg. In the song, he thinks he’s found the perfect match. Finally, someone he sees spending his days with the kids, the white picket fence and the pets. It all seems too good to be true. And it is, as to his chagrin, the lady’s a lesbian. With this information, Cuomo’s lyrics recount the inner turmoil he goes through upon this earth-shattering realisation. Now, I know that Pinkerton contains some lines in there that would probably be categorised as problematic in these times. They most likely always have been. But Rivers Cuomo in 1996 was a person who needed a hug and was clearly very frustrated. It wasn’t something that people at the time were ready for, but it was as real as it gets and for that you gotta give him some respect.

Like all the other songs on the album, the track is a raw and hard-hitting performance on all fronts. What initially starts off with this almost Christmas-like introduction with softly-played guitars playing the opening riff suddenly pummels into the verses with the introduction of Patrick Wilson’s drums, Matt Sharp’s bass guitar and Cuomo’s vocal. Cuomo would never be as expressive in his vocal delivery past this album, though the melody within the verses is realtively simple, he’s really belting them out with some grit and melismatic turns occurring here and there. It’s pretty passionate stuff. Gotta give a shout-out to the slide guitar that arrives in the mix at points. And a big plus to the dueling guitars solo in the break. The chord progression underneath it would be used as the basis for ‘Do You Wanna Get High’ 20 years later, if you didn’t know. Always enjoyed how it transitions into the following track too. Two very complete songs, but hearing them both together is a whole other level.

#989: Weezer – Only in Dreams

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2006 was the year that I listened through Weezer’s Blue Album for the first time. I was 11 years old and had somehow stumbled upon ‘Buddy Holly’, ‘Undone’ and ‘Say It Ain’t So’ through the TV and music video sites that weren’t YouTube. I liked all three. It only made sense to own the album they were on, so I could listen to them whenever I wanted. Every track on there was instantly memorable. The guitars, good. The harmonies, good. The choruses, very nice. And coming through the decked-out speakers my uncle installed for the XP computer, it certainly made for an experience. But at that age, I still didn’t have quite the attention span. My eye had caught the just-about eight minute length of the final track ‘Only in Dreams’ on Windows Media Player. Not to say that everything I had heard depended on how it ended, but a kid doesn’t usually have the patience to sit through that long a song. The wall of feedback at the end of ‘Holiday’ left a brief period of silence, and then the bass guitar riff of ‘…Dreams’ started. And I was pretty much entranced from that point onward. Very hypnotic way to start, which makes those guitar entrances for the choruses really special.

The track is one in which Rivers Cuomo, or at the least the nameless narrator here, is detailing this alluring, mystical lady who he just can’t get his mind off. She seems to be the perfect woman. He’s written the lyric with a second-person narrative, as if addressing the listener. You know, “you can’t resist her, she’s in your bones”. But taking into account the observational takes of women that would be a constant through the band’s discography, I think it’s fair to say it’s all coming from a very personal experience. Cuomo details a fairytale of a man and woman holding hands and floating into the ether, only to wake up, realise that it’s all been a dream and be left disappointed by a lonely reality. Hey, it’s relatable stuff. Could say it may suffer from little sappy. But goodness, the crunch of those guitars that come in during the choruses add so much emotional weight that anything else that happens during this song is justified.

I think we can all agree that the highlight of the entire track is the breakdown that happens about five minutes in. By that point, the singing has finished – you won’t hear Cuomo’s voice again. And starting with the bass guitar again, the track solo rises in intensity with Patrick Wilson smacking on the drums and cymbals and dueling guitar lines, courtesy of Cuomo. This section seems to go on and on, there’s a huge build in tension. You wonder where it’s gonna go. And the release happens when all the guitars fall in, playing the bass guitar riff in unison. It’s a glorious moment, capped off with a spectacular solo, coming to an end in the comedown with Matt Sharp’s bass – just like the track started. That’s how the whole album ends. And that’s how Weezer introduced themselves to the world. Talk about a way to start things off.

#928: Weezer – No One Else

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Not sure if there’s a catchier power pop tune about a possessive and controlling boyfriend than Weezer’s ‘No One Else’, the second track on the band’s Blue Album from 1994. Seeing that title for the first time, your mind go to something like, “Oh, it’s one of those songs where the narrator doesn’t want to be with anyone else than the person they’re currently with.” But then you hear it and realise that a completely different angle is taken. Instead, the narrator doesn’t want his girl to have a life, go outside, or laugh at anyone else’s jokes. And if anyone sees her out in the town, the relationship’s as good as over. Some could say that a track like is a little problematic. I think Weezer fans realise this too. If only the musicality on display was bad, then I would be inclined to like it a lot less. As it stands now, I still see it as a favorite of mine.

Compared to the swaying feel of preceding track ‘My Name Is Jonas’, ‘No One Else’ ploughs on with your standard 4/4 rhythm, falling right into its first verse with a descending guitar riff. Those crunchy-toned guitars take up the soundscape. Rivers Cuomo sings the first verse, bassist Matt Sharp joins in on the chorus with that somewhat iconic falsetto, Brian Bell harmonises on the chorus’s final line and with the return of the opening riff we’re back to the second verse. This has all happened in just under a minute. The track goes under a ‘intro-verse-chorus-verse-chorus-solo-chorus’ structure, but it subtly adds these layers and changes as the track progresses. Cuomo, Sharp and Bell are all singing together during the second chorus instead of coming in one-by-one. There’s a tension-setting one-chord-playing guitar that comes in during the second verse. Cuomo never sings the chorus the exact same way each time it comes around. Just these little things that keep you engaged while the track goes on.

The track’s side-eye inducing take on relationships makes it something of a precursor to what Cuomo would make a full nose-dive into when it came to writing and recording Pinkerton. But while I think you can somewhat sympathise what Cuomo was going through with some of the lyricism on that record, at least after having read up on the context of what was going on during the making of that album, the narrator on ‘No One Else’ is a straight-up unlikable person. Everything’s just so easy to sing along to though, and it’s full of cathartic moments of tension and release. It’s a sleek three minute package.

#892: Weezer – My Name Is Jonas

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One of the greatest album openers to ever exist? It might just be. I’ve had a physical copy of Weezer’s Blue Album for so long now, almost all of its lyrics and guitar parts and vocal embellishments… guitar feedback, you name it, are all embedded in that thick head of mine. And that album begins with this song, one that I want to say I can remember properly hearing for the first time in 2006 on proper quadrophonic computer speakers that my uncle installed because he was a nerd about that sort of stuff, pausing and rewinding at certain parts because I was so wowed that guitars were playing different things in each speaker.

The acoustic riff, written by the band’s original guitarist who left before the album was finished, that starts everything off is all jolly and unassuming. Then Rivers Cuomo comes in with the track’s first line alongside the band proper, and from then on it’s a whole different ball game. With its 6/8 timing, the track has this huge swaying momentum – heave-hoing back and forth with that wall of crunchy guitars. And the fact that this track doesn’t have a real chorus means that there isn’t a break or change of some sort. Sure there are those parts where the guitars fade and let the acoustic riff come in, but then they launch back into the frame again. Every section seamlessly rolls into the next, culminating with that final “Yeah, yeah, yeaaaargh”. Musically, it really throws you all over the place. Pulling and pushing, lifting you up and then gently placing you down.

Sometimes I kind of forget that there are words to this track that you have to follow. The lyrics aren’t necessarily about one thing. They touch upon nostalgia, childhood… memories in general. One main point in there is when Cuomo recollects a phone call he received from his little brother who had (then) recently been in an accident at work. But there’s such an towering confidence in the delivery of these words that it’s easy to let them just wash over you. Melody’s fantastic. I remember reading somewhere that after Kurt Cobain killed himself, kids found their next musical saviours in Weezer when the Blue Album arrived. And dammit if “My Name Is Jonas” didn’t get their hopes up when they popped the album into their computers, then I don’t know what more they could have wanted.