Weezer

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More About

• Weezer
• Matt Sharp

Fucking Weezer. Rivers C. and the other dudes (till Matt Sharp returns, who cares?) make one-third of a decent record—pure pop for now people, if your "now" happens to be somewhere between the blue debut and Pinkerton. "Troublemaker" goes nowhere, but it's a catchy rut nonetheless; "Pork and Beans" is a screw-you with a smile; "The Greatest Man That Ever Lived (Variations on a Shaker Hymn)" is as perfect a career distillation as Cuomo will ever conjure; album adios "The Angel and the One" is 6:46 of heartbreakingly lovely cut with enough smarm to make it palatable, barely. ("It's not my destiny to be the one that you will lay with," sings Cuomo at the start, and it's downhill from there.)

So, yeah, four out of 10 are keepers—which is a touch generous, as "Troublemaker" is also tired-making after a while, but still. The rest, though: unlistenable, nothing to see here, move along. Course, it didn't have to be this way: The "deluxe edition" of this, the red album, features five outtakes better than the songs that made the cut—which isn't saying much, as only two of them are worth adding to the permanent playlist ("Miss Sweeney," which I swear to God has the exact same chorus as "Susanne"; and "The Spider," again with the Pet Sounds). Best song, though: "The Weight" off the U.K. version. Because The Band wrote it.