A conversation between Tyler and Writers’ Loom contributor Norman.
Tyler: Norman, I’m glad Weezer are still out there. I’ve had good times personally listening to their music and, twice, attending their shows. No ill will from me toward them.
That said, I haven’t truly known or even listened to an album of theirs since 2002’s Maladroit. Excluding the occasional single, SZNZ: Summer is the first complete Weezer release I’ve spun start to finish in many years.
Norman: I’m mostly the same. But I did pick up OK Human, which I think is an amazing chamber pop record.
Weezer is very important to me. I was about 14 when the Blue Album took over the airwaves. I learned “The Sweater Song” on guitar. I had a poster on my wall.
But my trajectory with them took a weird turn. I bought Pinkerton on the day it came out and hated it. I had just turned 16 and here was Rivers Cuomo writing about how he’s tired of sex. I couldn’t relate to a lot of the album and it was musically challenging, so I took it out and crushed it with a sledgehammer, literally.
Tyler: Goodness.
Norman: And of course when I took another spin in my mid-20s I fell in love with it!
I became a Christian about six months after the sledgehammer incident and so I checked out of secular music for a solid four years. When I checked back in, Weezer was doing the Green Album, which sounded okay to me, but boring. So I left off listening to them until OK Human.
Tyler: I had fun listening to the Green Album. Incidentally, that is about when I hopped on board the Weezer bandwagon. I was 18 and spent many a dorm-room hour downloading the demos for Maladroit, which the band released as they were recorded.
I couldn’t do “Beverly Hills,” though. That’s when I fell off.
Norman: So what do we want out of Weezer these days? They have reached this point in their career where they do whatever they want. A metal album? Sure! A covers record? Why not?
Tyler: Big hooks, bright sounds?
Norman: I like that. And to me that is what’s missing from a lot of their most recent work.
I also want clever lyrics. Blue and Pinkerton are genuinely funny and thoughtful. Some of Cuomo’s more recent lyrical ventures have been a collage of sophomoric nonsense. And sometimes just stupid.
Tyler: Well, if we wanna dive in and talk Summer, I couldn’t help but compare “Records” to something like Blue’s “Surf Wax America.” “Surf Wax” is cheekily defiant and bursting with joy. “Records” is just…defiant, and rather joyless.
Which is my problem with this EP overall. It’s awfully angry for a summer-themed project. Every song has a real chip on its shoulder.
Also, it sounds so compressed and canned. It’s abrasive.
Clearly, I’m not this record’s biggest fan.
Norman: I like that you’ve pointed out how angry it is. I don’t begrudge a little anger, but this doesn’t play as very convincing anger. It lacks conviction.
Is it because Weezer has been soulless for so long that we can’t register anything genuine or is this album just a phone in job?
Tyler: Well, was OK Human an emotional record, or just pastiche?
Norman: I don’t know if I’d call it “emotional,” but it was heartfelt. Take a listen to “Mirror Image.” It’s not even two minutes. Check back with me after that.
Tyler: Stand by.
Tyler: Yeah, I can get down with that. Especially the a cappella finish, which sounds as vulnerable as any lines I’ve heard Cuomo sing.
Norman: It plays like a lost track from the Pinkerton era.
So I think we can agree that the sound on Summer is a bit much. What about the lyrics?
Tyler: They’re just so damned pissy.
Norman: Yeah. I will say, though, that I’m intrigued by “Lawn Chair.” Cuomo is airing out some theological grievances. Namely that God has been torturing humans for fun, calling God a “punk-ass.” I don’t agree with him, but I still love it when artists tackle this kind of thing. It’s obviously a question or complaint against God that has been around since forever.
Tyler: That’s a fair move by Cuomo, I’ll give you. It’s kind of a metal set of lyrics if you look at them.
Not exactly summery.
Though I imagine there’s summery metal.
Norman: I’d like to know more about the story behind it. It sounds like it might be about a miscarriage with that line about throwing out your baby and the woman crying and unable to breathe at the end.
My wife and I had a miscarriage in 2013 and those are definitely the kinds of questions you ask.
One reason I don’t mind a song like “Lawn Chair” is that I think those questions, that kind of anger is something that believers feel too. I may not come to the same conclusions that Cuomo does, but the sentiment is understandable.
Tyler: Absolutely. Pain makes a believer doubt their faith. And there is a lot of pain in “Lawn Chair”’s vocal delivery alone.
With the first track, then, Cuomo has thrown down a gauntlet. Yet, as we’ve both lamented, the rest of the work doesn’t rise to the occasion.
I mean, what is “Cuomoville?” Rivers, man, you can’t be holding yourself over your audience like that.
Norman: That song is so insane it’s almost funny. He has to know that the song is asinine, right? How do his bandmates stand it?
Tyler: The song title did not leave me optimistic. Sure enough…
Norman: I’d like to double back to “Records,” because it hits on a theme Cuomo explored in OK Human. On that album he has two songs about the experience of being lost in something, first an audio book and then songwriting on his piano. Those songs really captured that feeling of being in the flow of something. “Records” strives for that, but is so inane.
Tyler: It really, really wants to be romantic. It is not. I’m a very stereotypical caricature of a record collector, and “Records” leaves me cold.
Norman: Which is a shame, because it is romantic to hear a great song and get it stuck in your head a bit.
Tyler: It is a shame. And it’s as sunny as Summer gets! Rivers is happy with his records—in Cuomoville—and miserable everywhere else.
Norman: It might be worth noting that the cover of the EP has a lot of fire, so they seem to be aware that this isn’t an afternoon at the beach with a nice breeze.
Tyler: That it ain’t.
Norman: Maybe they are thinking of all the wildfires that sweep across California each summer.
Tyler: I’m sorry to report that you’ve made me laugh, darkly.
Norman: Not sure if you want to dive any further into this mess, but I’d like to stop one moment to talk about “Blue Like Jazz.”
Tyler: Is jazz exclusively blue? J’ACCUSE, RIVERS.
Norman: When I found the track list for this record, I was hoping that Cuomo has written a song about this popular Christian book from the early 2000s.
Instead it’s about…jazz music and includes the dumbest line in maybe all of Weezer’s discography.
“Blue like jazz, blue like jazz/Show me how to be cool like that.”
Tyler: That line is not good.
Norman: That’s all I got on SZNZ: Summer. I did like SZNZ: Spring a bit. We have two more of these records coming up so hopefully one of them will be decent.
Tyler: Perhaps SZNZ: Fall will be inspired by Moondance.
Norman: Honestly, I hope not. They’d find a way to crap all over that vibe.
Writers' Loom 