Tag Archives: weezer

#687: Weezer – Keep Fishin’

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So I completely forgot to do this yesterday. I was on my laptop almost all day too so I’m not sure how that happened. But we carry on, it’s nothing to get hung about.

Some time, I’ll say in about 2005, I was watching Kerrang! and the video for ‘Keep Fishin” came on. I would have been nine going on ten and I knew who the Muppets were. Weezer, not so much. But I thought the song was good and the video was good for comedy value too. YouTube was on the verge of being created, so the music video site I knew was the LAUNCH media site that was run by Yahoo! (If anyone remembers that who’s reading, you have my respect). I was able to watch a majority of my favourite videos on there. If they weren’t region-locked. But I remember showing ‘Keep Fishin’ to my good friend back in primary school and we would laugh and joke about what was going on. And through those repeated viewings I steadily began to appreciate that this was a great song. Good hook. Swinging rhythm and memorable melodies/vocal harmonies. That’s really all you need. And I think that was the first song by Weezer that I had ever heard.

Fifteen years on, I still care about Weezer a little. The Blue Album and Pinkerton are undisputed classics. The band’s last release that I was really into was The White Album, some great songs on that. Their new album’s due to be out in about May(?), if I remember correctly. I’ll listen, but I’m not counting down the days towards it or anythin’. Maladroit, the album that ‘Keep Fishin’ appears on, is all right. It saw the group return to a heavier/metal-influenced edge to their music after the relatively tame Green Album. That works well for some songs on there more than others. There are only a select few tracks on it that I’m into, ‘American Gigolo’ is one. ‘Dope Nose’ is another.

Listening to Maladroit for the first time, I was unsettled that the version of ‘Keep Fishin’ on there wasn’t quite the same as the one in the music video. It sounded a lot more rough, less sleek. Kinda messy in some aspects. Turned out that the band re-recorded the guitars, bass and drums for the single release. I’m sure that there are many people who prefer the album version to that of the single. I am not one of those people. So I’ll just clarify that it’s the single version of the track that I’ve grown accustomed to for the past fifteen years.

Here is that album version if you want to compare.

#630: Weezer – In the Garage

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When Weezer signed to Geffen Records in 1993, frontman and singer-songwriter Rivers Cuomo was assumedly stoked about the whole situation. So much so that he wrote two songs about the ordeal. Whichever one he wrote first can be argued but alongside ‘Holiday’, ‘In the Garage’ was written. Both appeared on the band’s blue debut album a year later.

The two songs connect to each other so much (subject matter wise) that they are put right next to each other in the tracklist, although whilst ‘Holiday’ is a much more uptempo and jubilant affair, ‘In the Garage’ slows things down and takes more of an introspective look on Cuomo’s feelings about being signed. The garage is that of Amherst House in Los Angeles where the members of Weezer lived and would hold their early rehearsals; the track is a dedication to that place. Rivers Cuomo is a nerd and heavy metal fan and a bit of a recluse and he’s proud to declare it here. In the garage he’s able to geek out on Dungeons and Dragons and worship his KISS posters without being judged by his peers. It’s a wholesome track. Has a very warm sentiment.

Much like all of the other tracks on the album, the song is characterized by a wall of sleek guitars (all provided by Cuomo) although here, there is a touch of harmonica and a fuzz bass in the second verse to change things up a bit. It’s a fine listen. It’s a popular one amongst Weezer fans. It’s probably not my personal favourite on the album. The whole thing is a 10/10 so you can’t go wrong.

My iPod #537: Weezer – Holiday

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It is time to talk about another holiday. This one appears as the ninth and penultimate song on Weezer’s classic debut album. The Blue Album is one that I have owned and cherished for almost ten years now. Knew it was something I would take to the first time I heard the strident opening power chords of “My Name Is Jonas”; the bar is high on every track, and it is one of those albums that I can play from front to back without becoming tired of it.

Like yesterday’s “Holiday”, the one by Weezer also celebrates a new-found freedom. But whilst Green Day’s celebrates freedom from leaving one world, Rivers Cuomo sings about the joy of entering a new one. Along with “In the Garage“, “Holiday” was written in a sudden burst of excitement after Weezer had been signed by major record company Geffen Records. It differs from the former in that that feeling of excitement can be sensed by the song’s tempo, rhythm, atmosphere and execution.

Cuomo invites the narrator to ‘go away for a while’ somewhere. Not even to a specific location because that’s how much his sense has gone out the window because of this ecstasy. All four members feature on vocals too, with Brian Bell, Matt Sharp, and Patrick Wilson performing the Beach Boys influenced vocals for the bridge. If you listen carefully during the feedback that the song ends with you can hear someone in the back let out a huge scream. If it’s because of the realisation that what they had just performed was the perfect take then it’s for a good reason.

My iPod #474: Weezer – The Greatest Man That Ever Lived (Variations on a Shaker Hymn)

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“The Greatest Man That Ever Lived” is one of the most confusing Weezer tracks to exist. It can also be considered to be their most epic, depending on your taste. Lyrically, the song finds Rivers Cuomo at the height of hubris. In every line he is adamant on telling you he’s the best, no one can tell him he’s not the best, he will show that he is the best if you don’t believe him, he’ll mess with you if you get in his way leading into the final verse in which he defiantly declares that he is the song’s title, and it is his destiny to give to the world.

The other thing about this song is, for every verse that is delivered the band sing in a different style ranging from rap, to Slipknot, to Beethoven and Bach. Quite the mindfuck. Though it does make for an adventurous and unpredictable six minutes of your life. On listening to it years ago, I still have the thought that what happens in this just shouldn’t work. I shouldn’t like this at all. But it does. And I do. It is weird.

So either Rivers had just cracked during the writing of this, or it is the sign that the man is some sort of crazy genius.

My iPod #457: Weezer – The Good Life

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“The Good Life” was released as the second single from Weezer’s second album, one that is considered to be their best too, Pinkerton in 1996. Though reception towards the album was not too great when it first came out. You can read about that for yourselves. The song was somehow meant to save the album’s commercial status but by the point of its rush-release the damage had been done.

The song is written from Rivers Cuomo’s frustration after painful surgery in which one of his legs literally had to be stretched in order to match the length of the other. Times were obviously not too great for the guy, and the experience inspired him to write the track.

In it, he still sees himself as a ‘funky dude’ when he looks at the mirror but things aren’t really funky when you’re broken, beaten down, and can’t go around anywhere without a cane to support you. The man is in clear desperation. Now I wouldn’t say this is the most cathartic track on Pinkerton, because that album is catharsis defined. But it is definitely one in which every element from the lead vocals, the improvisational backing vocals, the whole band performance, the fast breakdown which leads into the slow comedown with the slide guitar……. Everything owns. One of Weezer’s best songs, in my opinion.

I wonder if this had been released as the first single whether that would have done anything for Pinkerton back in its day. Oh well.