Weezer – Raditude – 2009
Raditude, perhaps one of the worst titled album, with the most obnoxious cover, I've ever seen, opens with perhaps the most exciting, lacerating and deliberately radio friendly song Cuomo and the boys have ever foisted onto its fans and non-fans alike. Co-written by power/pop genius producer Butch Walker, If You're Wondering if I Want You To (I want You To) could also be the saddest and, in a strange way, most honest Rivers has been in a while. It chronicles a relationship from the beginning to complacency. It's terrific and, through it, the album holds a LOT of promise.
Taking a page from previous Listening Post stars Aerosmith and Bon Jovi, Weezer has turned to outside writers for the first time, the aforementioned Walker, Jermaine Dupri, Li'l Wayne and others. And, in Rolling Stone, Cuomo alleged that he enjoyed the collaborative process so much that he sought out the outsiders. I doubt that. I think the songs needed a bit of sprucing up because a cute video and a hootenanny tour couldn't elevate Red to even Make Believe sales. (Red was also a pretty crappy record).
Whatever the reasons be they honest or duplicitous, creative or mercenary, a bit of energy has been injected into the Weezer repertoire for the first time in a while.
“I'm Your Daddy”'s pop sheen and soaring chorus had my toe tapping all the way and the Gary Glitter-stadium ready beat of “The Girl Got Hot” elevates a song that was already pretty great to begin with. Who hasn't know a girl from high school who blossomed and, well “got hot”?
The single, “Can't Stop Partying”, featuring Li'l Wayne, rounds out the 1-2-3-4 salvo of this album (named by Rainn Wilson...god, please someone stop Rainn Wilson from doing more than Twittering.) While it's easy to listen to, Cuomo has said that he couldn't relate to the track until he added some changes to more solemn minor chords to the musical bed, but that doesn't change the fact that it's a weak excuse for a single. I have to admit, the music does add an ominous overtone to the song and brings an ironic tone to the entire affair.
Tracks like “Put me Back Together”, “Tripping Down the Freeway”, are no better or worse than some of the pop offerings from Green Album. They may not have the resonance of the lesser songs on Pinkerton or the highs of, say, “Perfect Situation” but they're light years better than the lowlights of Red or Maladroit.
Lyrically, for the first time I feel like Rivers is embracing his place in life. He's pushing forty, he's still a geek, likes rap, Kiss, etc, but now he has a kid and a wife, a college degree and maybe life isn't so anxious. It's anxious, yes, just not as desperate. There's, criminey, happiness in his world. He's let others in a bit. He's a rock elder statesman. Trapped by his musical limitations he's no longer trying to be something he's not, as on Maladroit, or clumsily retrospective, as on The Red Album. He still tries to experiment a bit, there some East Indian music and singing on “Love is the Answer” but that's okay, since India is, if nothing else, the land of Kama Sutric Love. (And at least it's not a trainwreck like “The Greatest Man Who Ever Lived”)
The top-down convertible bombast of “Let It All Hang Out” was completely unexpected and takes that Weezer as 21st Century version of The Cars to the next level.
“In the Mall”'s production and energy overcomes the weak songwriting. But just barely.
The desperate and sad Beach Boys-ian “I Don't Want to Let You Go' is splendid.
I'm not sure where Weezer fits in the pantheon of rock history. They certainly aren't growing artistically, successfully stretching their wings like their 90s counterparts, Green Day. Their music is at best exhilarating power pop, at worst forgettable ephemera. But as long as they keep putting out records like Raditude they will have a fan in me.
Grade B+
A Side: The Girl Got Hot, If You're Wondering....,
BlindSide: I'm Your Daddy, Let It All Hang Out, I Don't Want to Let You Go
DownSide: Nothing really bogs this record down.
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