Reflecting Pool - Weezer - Everything Will Be Alright in the End

 Reflecting Pool - Weezer - Everything Will Be Alright in the End

Weezer - Everything Will Be Alright in the End - 2014

Weezer is back on this record with a vengeance and a handful of self loathing but not too much. 

I’m glad I took a while to give this a write up since I never understood what “Maybe P:at should play the drums” meant until I recently learned that Rivers allowed Pat Wilson to take on lead guitar chores while he concentrated on being the front man. 

“Back to the Shack” is yet another song in the “I went too far doing something else and I need to get back to what works that Rivers started with Pinkerton’s “The Good Life”.

But it’s been years in the wilderness which includes co-writers and letting band mates take over…some weird stuff out there.

Here they are, back with Ric Ocasek after losing their record deal and putting out the surprisingly good Hurley on Epitaph. This is a one off for Republic and, dammit, I really wish it was an eponymous record cuz it FEELS like Green. 

I can only believe that “Eulogy for a Rock Band” has to be about Weezer, despite the fact that it’s been 20 years and not 15. 

Yes, Rivers is co-writing here, sort of suggesting that, while he’s a pretty good songsmith, he really needed Cropper or Sharpe to flesh out his ideas. 

What I find myself wishing is that Rivers was a songwriter who wrote stuff that other people wanted to play but his songs are SO Cuomo-centric that it’s impossible to imagine anyone else recording them. 

And yet, songs like “Go Away” with Bethany Cosentino are spectacular and perfect for Best Coast.

Knowing that Rivers has a daughter and his relationship with his father and step-father weren’t the best…”Foolish Father” is a masterstroke of confessional Weezering. And knowing that “Everything Will Be Alright in the End” brings a tear to this father’s eye. 

U2 has three distinct lives, broken up by sets of releases. I wonder if Weezer has the same. Because they could have ended everything here and been just fine. 

I guess I’ll have to finish this and revisit some others to figure that out. 

Grade: A

A Side: Back to the Shack, Eulogy for a Rock Band, Da Vinci, Cleopatra

BlindSide: I’ve Had it Up to Here, The British Are Coming, Go Away, Foolish Father, The Futurescope Trilogy Pt. III: Anonymous