Album A Day: Weezer – Weezer (“The Blue Album”)

Today’s Album A Day goes out to fellow Arcadian colealtmann, quite possibly the biggest Weezer fan I know (mostly because most of my friends aren’t Weezer fans).

As much as my relationship with Weezer and their music fluctuates frequently, listening to the Blue Album tends to perpetually put them back in my good graces. This album is straightforward alternapop (did I just make up a new genre?) as only a geek like Rivers Cuomo can create. The charming nerdiness of “Buddy Holly” and “In The Garage” (in which he references Kitty Pryde and 12 sided dice), alongside the deapan verses of “Undone (The Sweater Song)” are undoubtedly silly, and if they were written today, they’d probably get lumped in with trash like Katy Perry and Lady Gaga (fun fact: I hate Lady Gaga). But because Rivers Cuomo is so unbelievably like the characters he writes about in these songs and rockers like “My Name Is Jonas”, he gives the band’s dorky 1990s garage rock style some newfound credence.  The music is simple and fun without giving up too much of its intelligence (sadly I can’t say that for future Weezer albums. Red Album anyone?), and the ease with which the entire band crafts and plays these 10 tracks make this my favorite Weezer album to date, and the one that (almost) makes me forgive their recent sins (Seriously, did you hear The Red Album?)

Weezer – Buddy Holly [iTunes] (YSI)

==TJ==