The Red Album - Weezer

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Weezer have always been a mixed-up bunch, and that eclecticism has never been more prominent than on The Red Album.

There are pop songs. There are ballads. There's a Bohemian Rhapsody-style affair that packs seven different styles into probably the strangest five minutes of your music-loving life.

Most surprisingly of all, control freak front man Rivers Cuomo has relinquished the reins and let his band mates write some songs.

Heck, he even lets them sing too.

That relaxed attitude shines through, especially on fantastic first single Pork and Beans and its accompanying YouTube pisstake video.

Elsewhere, Dreamin' rocks like something like off The Blue Album, while The Greatest Man That Ever Lived is sure to become a live favourite, skipping between styles like a drunk choosing songs on a juke box.

Only Everybody Get Dangerous - a simple affair that should have been relegated to a b-side - lets the side down. 

But when an album has a ballad as good as Heart Songs, in which Cuomo shows off his inner music geek and sings lines about his favourite songs - including everyone from Bruce Springsteen to Cat Stevens, Nirvana and Slayer - you know it's a good one.

*Weezer's The Red Album is out now through Universal.

- © Fairfax NZ News

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Laurie   #5   05:26 pm Jan 28 2009

*eats own shoe*

Jeremy   #4   05:26 pm Jan 28 2009

yea pinkerton was rad, was at their only nz show at the logan campbell centre when they toured to support that album, wish they would tour again, great band.

Jimmy   #3   05:26 pm Jan 28 2009

You're wrong Laurie...Rivers Coumo is the front man 0- i.e. Singer/Guitarist.

Laurie   #2   05:26 pm Jan 28 2009

*ahem* Isnt Rivers the guitarist and the Bryan dude is the vocalist?

I could be wrong but its unlikely.

JB   #1   05:26 pm Jan 28 2009

Nothing Weezer ever does from now on will come close to touching Pinkerton. Masterpiece.

I've guess i've always felt a total lack of sincerity since they've reformed. Maybe i'm just old enough to remember how rad they were back in the day.