2.5 stars (out of 4)Rivers Cuomo has a knack for ticking off his hardcore fans – those who feel that pretty much everything he’s done since the 1996 blood-on-the-tracks Weezer album “Pinkerton” has been a sell-out to pop triviality. Elaborate joke or not (Cuomo says “not!”), Weezer has clearly been in let’s-just-have-fun mode since 2000.
The latest provocation to the Weezer faithful, those who still cling to Cuomo’s ‘90s needy-nerd persona, is “Where’s My Sex?” It appears in the middle of Weezer’s eighth studio album, “Hurley” (Epitaph), and it’s one of those slyly dumb little ditties that Cuomo has been spitting out like sunflower seeds in the last decade (“Hash Pipe,” “Dope Nose,” “Beverly Hills,” “Pork and Beans”). Substitute the word “socks” for “sex,” and what you have is Cuomo turning one of his young daughter’s mispronunciations into a song that’s literally child’s play, complete with an absolutely incomprehensible middle-eight section that sounds like it was imported from a different album by another band.
The song’s stitched-together feel is also emblematic of an album that feels a bit rushed. “Hurley” is being billed as the band’s punk album – the California quartet’s first for an indie label after 16 years on a major – but that’s an exaggeration. It still includes co-songwriting contributions from Hollywood regulars Linda Perry, Desmond Child and Dan Wilson, and no shortage of massed-choir backing vocals, globs of keyboards, symphonic introductions and a glockenspiel break. Despite all that, the songs are linear get-in, get-out affairs, direct and punchy without a lot of room for even guitar solos (there’s exactly one on the entire album).
So the thrills are all about immediacy, Weezer power-pop with a little more bite than usual in some of the lyrics (the hipster-bashing “Trainwrecks”) and in Cuomo’s voice, which occasionally slips into an almost raunchy wail. When Cuomo slows things down to a mid-tempo chug or a flute-swept ballad (“Unspoken”), he’s in trouble. “Memories,” “Ruling Me” and “Smart Girls” are more like it, the kind of stompers that music this care-free demands. And then there’s “Time Flies,” a low-fi campfire song that sounds like one of the bedroom recordings on Cuomo’s excellent solo compilations. It’s almost anti-Weezer in its off-the-cuff production, the exhausted rasp in Cuomo’s voice, the self-lacerating lyrics. It feels like a long-lost “Pinkerton” demo, and then it’s gone.
Rivers Cuomo talks Weezer and plays some classic tunes on Sound Opinions.
greg@gregkot.com