Weezer “Weezer (White Album)”
In the spring of 1994, one year after Radiohead released “Pablo Honey” and just weeks after Beck released “Mellow Gold,” we were introduced to Rivers Cuomo. From the very outset, we knew precisely who he was. We knew it even before he knew it. Well, at least we thought we did. By “we,” I mean all Americans, Canadians and western Europeans between the ages of eighteen and twenty-something. And, specifically, I mean those of us who were in college, or had gone to college, or had owned a twenty sided die or seen the original Star Wars trilogy multiple times times. For those of us in that demographic, we instantly understood that Rivers Cuomo was very special. He was The New Hope.
The evidence was laid bare on MTV and on Modern Rock radio and in Spin magazine. It was undeniable: he was part Buddy Holly and part Elvis Costello. But also, with his averted gaze and shaggy mop, he was a little bit like Stephen Malkmus and Thurston Moore. He was all of those guys. He was the guy. He was our guy. Maybe he knew it. Maybe he didn’t. Maybe he dreamed about it. And maybe that terrified him. But, back then, in 1994, he was going to be our reclamation. And our revenge.
The history of nerd culture is surprisingly young. The word “nerd” is thought to have been born from the 1940s term “nert” which implied somebody who was mentally lacking or unstable. By 1950, Doctor Seuss nudged “nert” into “nerd.” And, for the next thirty years, “nerd” became increasingly synonymous with “square” -- somebody prudish, uptight and bookish, but unsophisticated. Nerds served as comic relief in movies and television shows. They were, by definition, never heroic. They were the guys Fonzie poked fun at in “Happy Days” — the too smart, sniveling, unsexy, unlovable losers.
But seasons change. And by the end of the 1970s, Elvis Costello and The Bad News Bears suggested a reconsideration. The 1980s were a decade of ascension and, ultimately, revenge for nerd culture. There were musical sparks, like The Feelies and Devo and They Might Be Giants. There were increasingly big screen inversions as well, like “Meatballs,” (of course) “Revenge of the Nerds, ” “Ghostbusters” and “Weird Science.” By the end of the 80s, the word “nerd” had both a retained, negative pejorative definition as well as an ironic, possibly heroic one.
It really wasn’t until the arrival of our Alternative Rock anti-heroes in the early 1990s, however, that the transformation was complete. In high school, in 1989, if I was called a “nerd,” it would have inspired feelings of shame and fear. Just a few years later, however, that same word could trigger the opposite response. Nerd pride blossomed. Nerds were cool! Some of this was the Kurt Cobain effect. Some was Thom Yorke. They’d unlocked the gates the year before. But then, in 1994, Weezer took their guitars, their druid skills, a shit ton of angst, and crashed right through.
Weezer’s debut was a high point for the “nerd revolution.” But it wasn’t the peak. Or, rather, it wasn’t the climax. That would have been, “Pinkerton,” from 1996 -- the album that gave us everything we wanted from Rivers Cuomo and which, also, failed miserably. According to some of us, it’s been downhill ever since. Rivers was once Che. And, for a couple of years we were true believers. But then, everything began to feel like Castro.
What happened during and after “Pinkerton” is the subject of vast and, often heated, discussions. The album itself, though now widely beloved, was cooly received by radio programmers at the time who were turning towards lighter (Jewel, Dave Matthews) and less alternative (Wallflowers, Sugar Ray, Third Eye Blind) Alt Rock. Shortly after the album’s release, bassist Matt Sharp — the closest thing that Cuomo had to a foil — left Weezer. Meanwhile, Cuomo was struggling with the trappings of fame — the “Imposter Syndrome,” the lack of peace and quiet, the temptations, the adulation and the rejection. And so, in the face of great alienation and disorganization, he did what many great nerds before him had done: he went to college. And not just any college. He went to Harvard.
But it only got worse. Much worse. Just months after “Pinkerton” thudded, Radiohead released “OK Computer.” Where Cuomo had gotten more earnest, sensitive and direct, Thom Yorke’s band had gotten more obtuse, dispassionate and dense. If you were still a freshman in college and still playing Dungeons and Dragons, maybe you stuck with Weezer. The rest of us, however, headed towards the cool kids’ table.
After “Pinkerton,” Weezer went on hiatus for nearly five years. During that time, the first of three generally loathed Star Wars prequels was released. Nerd nation was miserable. Their bright hopes had been snuffed out and they were out for blood. So, when Rivers Cuomo did reemerge in 2001, with a new haircut and seemingly full of snark, he was an easy target. Gone was the vulnerability and relatability. Gone were the complicated song structures and ringing feedback. In their places, we got a single that lifted its bass line from the “Batman” TV theme and a second one that seemed way too happy.
Whatever twentieth century Weezer suggested, twenty-first century Weezer signified something else. According to their new critics, they now represented a victory for irony over vulnerability; a validation of alpha-male Pop Punk; as well as the rapid commodification of Emo. They meant that Blink 182 and Sum 41 and Fallout Boy were the winners. Worse still, it seemed like Rivers Cuomo embraced all of it. It was an unmistakable betrayal — like in “Revenge of the Nerds 3: The Next Generation,” when nerd-king Lewis Skolnick grew a ponytail and fraternized with the Alpha Betas.
That was the narrative: nerd genius intentionally betrays his talent and withholds his true self from fans. We were still pissed about Bush Gore. And we were still pissed about those Star Wars prequels. And we were still enthralled with Radiohead, who were the opposite of Weezer. And we’ve been punishing Rivers Cuomo ever since.
In reality, the “we” is just a sliver of fans. It may only be the remote corners of Reddit, a handful of Twitter trolls and the staff at Pitchfork. But goddam are they loud. I disqualified myself from the “we” many years ago because, in truth, I only bought a few Weezer albums after “Pinkerton.” Time passed. I grew older. I fell in love with other bands. And when I did hear Weezer on the radio, it sounded like a lot of the Pop Punk of the time, except with Rivers Cuomo half-rapping the words. Since 2000, I’ve barely listened to enough Weezer to consider myself a “fan,” much less a “hater.” But I loved those first two albums enough to wonder what was going on. I did not understand how -- according to Pitchfork -- every new Weezer album was grading out as a massive failure. Every. single. one. I assumed that they could not be that bad -- that those writers who loved Radiohead and hated the Star Wars prequels were to blame.
On some level, I understood. To those betrayed fans, Cuomo had run away from everything that they valued. They thought it was true love, but he’d ghosted them. They rationalize the rejection through some combination of Pinkerton’s massive failure (at the time), plus Matt Sharp’s departure, plus wealth, fame and, eventually, marriage. According to their testimony, Rivers Cuomo 2.0 became formulaic and derivative to the point of being self-parodying. He navigated Weezer towards novelty hits and encounters with Weird Al, Kenny G and Lil Wayne. By 2010, and according to the plaintiffs in the case, Weezer had become barely distinguishable from their lesser spawn. For the true believers, it was worse than a betrayal. It was a tragedy.
The defense was, unsurprisingly, an inversion of the prosecution. Whereas once-fans-turned-critics considered twenty first century Weezer to be “formulaic,” Cuomo proudly admitted to be searching for the perfect songwriting “formula.” From the very beginning, he applied an engineering mind to his trade. He had binders of great song ideas, organized into what he called the “Encyclopedia of Pop.” As technology advanced, those binders became playlists and databases and algorithms. If there is, in fact, a formula to songwriting, Cuomo is probably closer to the discovery than anyone else. And, while bruised fans accused Cuomo of withholding, in reality he was (and is) among the most interactive Rock stars alive. He constantly shared updates on social media. He responds to comments on message boards. He annotates his band’s lyrics on Genius.com. I’m sure there are some musicians who are more accessible to their fans than Rivers Cuomo, but I suspect most of them are less famous. From a distance, it seemed that the issue was not that he was holding back, but rather that he was not giving certain fans exactly what they needed.
And then, of course, there’s the third narrative. The one that Cuomo either won’t say, because he’s too polite, or can’t say because it will sound ungenerous. But it’s the narrative that most lucid fans have suggested: People grow up. Weezer grew up. (Most of) Their fans grew up. And, yes, Rivers Cuomo grew up. And when people grow up, they always change. And they sometimes grow apart. By every account I’ve seen and heard, Cuomo’s interest in Pop culture is sincere. He appears genuinely curious (and confused by) fame and celebrity. His songwriting heroes are not Alex Chilton or Michael Stipe or Ian MacKaye. They’re Brian Wilson and Paul McCartney and Billy Joel. And though he’s evidently bright (possibly too bright), he’s also quite literal. His metaphors are just that. They’re not codes and symbols. They’re not unintelligible Radiohead ciphers. In his search for “the formula,” he wants the same thing that John Lennon wanted. He wants what many of us want. He wants the truth! Why else would he spend thirty days in silent meditation every year? To fuck with us?
While I was only vaguely aware of these narratives between 2001 and 2010, it was hard not to hear some of the noise — even from miles away. In September of 2010, Weezer released “Hurley,” an album that sold poorly, produced zero hits and featured a photograph of actor Jorge Garcia from the TV show “Lost” as its cover. Many considered it both an artistic nadir and confirmation of Cuomo’s bottomless snark. In 2011, Cuomo’s longtime friend, and former Weezer bassist, Mikey Welsh, committed suicide. The band had released three albums in three years. It would be another four years before we’d hear from Weezer again.
When Cuomo’s band returned in 2014, however, everything seemed different. During his time away. he and wife had their second child. Weezer’s new album was optimistically titled “Everything Will Be Alright in the End.” Additionally, it reunited them with Ric Ocasek, who’d produced their iconic debut. But, the biggest surprise was perhaps “Back to the Shack,” the album’s first single and a masterclass in fan service. On “Back to the Shack,” Cuomo assures listeners that he wants to rock like it’s 1994 again, that he’s learned from his mistakes, that he’s tried all the other things and he’s ready to return to his roots and that, of course, he never would have seen the light without his army of loyal fans. It was a startling (and unnecessary) plea from a very successful musician to an audience segment that seemed only to be happy when they were miserable. But somehow, it felt neither desperate nor insincere. Cuomo sounded like he actually meant it. And, for whatever reason, and though he was not speaking to me, it made me want to listen to Weezer again.
I opted to give it time. The thing about promises is that they are much easier to make than they are to keep. So, I waited for the next album -- the one after “Everything Will Be Alright” -- to determine whether he really meant that thing about rocking out like it was 1994. As it turned out, I wouldn’t have to wait all that long. In 2016, Weezer announced the release of their fourth self-titled album. Like their (also) self-titled debut, this record included ten tracks. Unlike their debut, this one featured a black and white cover and was therefore appropriately dubbed “The White Album.” The hubris of The Beatles’ reference was both amazing and kind of funny. As for the music itself, and whether it would resemble “The Blue Album” or “Pinkerton,” I was neither hopeful nor cynical. I was, simply, curious. Yes — for the first time in twenty years, I was curious about Weezer again.
Before I listened to “The White Album” I made a point to return to the first four Weezer records -- the only ones I ever actually purchased or spent real time with. Then, I made my way chronologically through the maligned middle period. Those albums are mercifully short. Additionally, I put together a playlist of all their singles through 2010, just to mitigate any nostalgia or recency bias. By the end, I knew what I absolutely did and did not like about “Beverly Hills,” “Pork and Beans,” “The Greatest Man Who Ever Lived,” “(If You're Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To" and, even, “I’m Your Daddy.” Through it all, I convinced myself (again) that Weezer was at one time a generationally important Rock band. But I also felt ready to resolve the bigger mysteries: Had they actually stopped being great? And: could they ever get back to that place?
“The White Album” is what came after the mea culpa. It’s the album after the album where Cuomo swears that he’s figured things out and that he felt our pain. He promised a return to those angsty, good ole days in the garage. And, to that end, he brought in producer, Jake Sinclair, who, though only thirty-one at the time and with a limited pedigree, was a member of a Weezer cover band called “Wannabeezer.” That was apparently just one of several olive branches he wanted to extend to the haters. Reading the initial press for “The White Album” is like listening in on an argument between old acquaintances, who were once friends, but who now have very little in common other than their strange fixation on some past argument. You wonder why they are still so hung up on it. You also wonder why they have to air it out so publicly. But also, you kind of wonder if it will ever get resolved.
As it turns out, “The White Album” only marginally relates to the band’s own history. Cuomo is not looking backwards — at least not formally. He’s still very much fiddling with the formula. By his own accounts, he was frequently constructing songs by searching his database for parts, and then by stitching things together based on clever ideas and musical principles he’d come to rely on. So, while it didn’t exactly sound like “artificial intelligence,” it also didn’t sound like a band jamming out in a garage. Further, with titles like “Thank God for Girls,” “Do You Wanna Get High,” “LA Girlz” and “Endless Bummer,” “The White Album” sure seemed like an album made by algorithms for algorithms.
But here’s the other thing -- it’s a great, fucking record. Not just good. Not just good compared to Weezer’s worst stuff. Not good compared to generic Pop Punk. It’s an almost uniformly great album based on any rubric I can imagine. The songwriting. The playing. The singing. The ideas. The production. It’s only occasionally intimate, but it’s all very personal, in the way that its themes and ideas are so clearly what Cuomo’s personal algorithm was optimized for at the time. Twenty years after his debut, he’s singing about California culture and the underside of that culture and how both sides are what made The Beach Boys possible and what made his marriage probable and how all of those things relate to love and addiction and shame. It’s a long way from “Say It Ain’t So.” But it’s an even longer way from “Can’t Stop Partying (featuring Lil Wayne).”
Like the best Weezer records, “The White one” is ostensibly a Power Pop album. It’s not hermetically sealed like “The Blue one,” nor is it as musically complex or as sonically rough as “Pinkerton.” It opens, rather quietly and modestly, with seagulls and the ring of an ice cream man in the distance of “California Kids.” The sunny skies then give way to a noticeably un-stressed singer who promises those titular kids that they’re all going to be fine (in case that was not clear on his previous album). The relatively staid bass line and melody of the verses then open up on the chorus, where Cuomo takes his tenor into successively higher registers. It’s a trick that, I suspect, he borrowed from Will Toledo of Car Seat Headrest, who probably stole it from Cuomo in the first place. Whatever the case, it’s effective at first subtly, but then suddenly, exciting you. By the end of the song, that quiet day by the ocean has become a pretty rocking beach party.
The two tracks that are most frequently compared to “vintage Weezer” -- and for some good reason -- are “Do You Wanna Get High” and “King of the World.” Both open with the squall of feedback, recalling “Tired of Sex” or “No Other One” from “Pinkerton.” And both feature that familiar, ringing but melodic, synthesizer tone. But, structurally, they are both their own things. The former is full of the tension that its title promises. It’s all pulsing bass and tantalizing offers. He just got back from Mexico with a hundred pack. They can stop whenever she wants. They can just hang around and listen to Bacharach. It’s a convincing seduction. “King of the World,” on the other hand, is all fuzzed out 90s guitar in the verse and a big chunky, melody in the chorus. It’s another trick that Cuomo likes to use -- going from one flat chord into a soaring melody. It’s the trick that spawned fun.. and hundreds of other imitators. But here, when Cuomo is singing about how he wishes he could protect his wife from anxiety and depression, it’s also completely endearing. That’s probably the reason why fun. used the trick — because it works.
More than it was inspired by “The Blue Album,” or “Pinkerton” or the algorithms, “The White Album” was inspired by Brian Wilson. Three part harmonies and lilting happy-sad-sad-happy melodies are frequent guests in the otherwise rocking, summer fun. "(Girl We Got A) Good Thing" has some real James Mercer jangle in its verses, to go along with a honeymoon off of the 101. It’s a darling homage to the Wilson brothers by way of “Figure 8” era Elliott Smith. But, in the way that only Weezer can, they cut the song in half with a searing Thin Lizzy guitar solo. And, like most of the album, it works. On the other side of that love affair, however, is “Endless Bummer” — a direct reference to the definitive Beach Boys compilation and a necessary counterpoint to all of the sunshine. The closing track begins simply with acoustic guitar, heartbreak and confusion and ends with the full band, a singalong, seagulls and the hope of more ice cream in the future.
“The White Album” is by no means perfect. Few albums are. There are even songs on “Blue” and “Pinkerton” that I skip sometimes. On their tenth album, I found myself resisting the first single, “Thank God for Girls,” and the similarly nervy, “Jacked Up.” Both tracks contain more words per minute than the average Eminem song. Both feature jaunty piano leads. And both contain amped up choruses that are tailor made for TikTok (despite the fact they predate that TikTok by several years). I’m not sure why they don’t work for me. Honestly, they’re closer to Olivia Rodrigo than they are to 90s Alt Rock. I bet my tween daughters would be into them — maybe they make me feel old. Regardless, they are two exceptions on an otherwise excellent record.
In 2016, Pitchfork gave “The White Album” a 6.2. 6.2 — my “Pork and Beans!” I want a retraction. If -- some way, somehow -- it were credited to Brian Wilson or Bob Pollard or Conor Oberst or Car Seat Headrest, “The White Album” would have been an 8. Or a 9. I’m certain of it. It may not be the Weezer record we’d hoped for. But this is where Rivers Cuomo found himself in 2016. It’s where all that living and thinking and playing and writing and meditation led him. And it’s a reminder that, with every album -- even the “bad” ones -- Rivers Cuomo figured out something new. And that, with every album, he would then go back and tweak his code. Sometimes, the algorithm spat out Jar Jar Binks. But, at least every twenty years, it also gave us Obi-Wan Kenobi -- our only hope.