Spectreview: Weezer – Weezer (Black Album)

-OLIVE-

“I feel no pain, I feel no pleasure
I only want to disappear”

Why does Weezer feel the need to keep releasing self-titled albums? Obviously brand recognition, right? Because every time they sew their name to another collection of faintly different yet increasingly terrible songs they run the risk of finally depleting the goodwill they built up in their early years when they were the underdogs of the alternative/emo market. Sure, at their core Weezer were always a pop band in a rock context, and the definition of pop has certainly morphed over that last 25 years, but ever since the “Green” days the band’s output has been a emotionally shallow far-cry to their earliest outings.

Weezer’s fifth eponymous album (sixth if you count their recent heap of covers) features spit-shined production (by Dave Sitek of TV on the Radio) and the eternally insipid lyrics of elderly frontman Rivers Cuomo. Did you know he’s almost 50? And in “Living in L.A.” he’s still calling women “girls,” like we’re still in the Pinkerton era and he’s still that misguided, stationery-sniffing horndog? Here he sounds just as much like James Mercer’s academically-underperforming brother than ever, only more vulgar. He tosses out tired escapist metaphors (“High As A Kite”) offers butt-headed excuses for his tactlessness (“I’m Just Being Honest”) and makes a weak attempt at us-vs-them solidarity (“Zombie Bastards”). It’s excruciating, the degree of irony in Cuomo having to explicitly state his honesty in his lyrics instead of deftly weaving it into his arrangements as he used to do so well in the past. As for the actual music? Not really much to report here. If you’ve listened to any Weezer after Make Believe you’ve heard these songs before. There are verses and choruses and bridges, rigid structures that follow the book of pop/rock to the T. Some tracks, like “Honest,” at least fleetingly recall Maladroit-era Weezer, while the hands-in-the-air ski resort anthem of “California Snow,” may be one of the most gleefully dopey things they’ve ever released.

So, what have we got? Notwithstanding the terrible optics of the title (if Cuomo’s idea of today’s popular music is “I like to take drugs and get money and also I swear a lot,” it’s embarrassing at best and vaguely offensive at worst) Weezer 6 is even more intellectually bereft than their previous records. Really though, that’s not the intention. All this band has ever wanted to do since the turn of the century is make fun records with the fewest brain cells possible, and there’s a market for that. And Rivers is probably leading as placid a life as he might be given his history, so there’s comfort in that. The Black Album has the potential to get your toes tapping through the sheer force of its production quality, but that’s about as much as it does. Just queue up “Buddy Holly” again and imagine an alternate universe where Weezer got abducted in 1999 by aliens that then wear their skin and, to this day, collectively operate under the name “Woozer.”

Not recommended (I’m just being honest).