Album review
Weezer - Weezer (The White Album)
4 StarsThis is no pastiche of so-called ‘classic’ Weezer.
There’s something reassuringly bold about Weezer’s decision to call this – or not call this, to be exact – the ‘White’ album. Clever, too, as combining the chosen colours of their three previous self-titled records - 1994’s ‘Blue’, 2001’s ‘Green’ and 2008’s ‘Red’ – creates… you guessed it. Mixing up the sounds of the songs contained within those bright sleeves would have a similar effect: opening track ‘California Kids’ begins, along with the sounds of crashing waves, near-identically to ‘Pinkerton”s ‘Pink Triangle’, the middle-eights of both ‘(Girl We Got A) Good Thing’ and ‘Summer Elaine and Drunk Dori’ are familiarly majestic, and closer ‘Endless Bummer’ reaches its climax in a not-entirely-different way to ‘Blue”s ‘Only In Dreams’, albeit much more quickly.
But this is no pastiche of so-called ‘classic’ Weezer. Nostalgic, yes – ‘Wind In Our Sail’ and ‘Jacked Up’ both edge towards the theatrical, while ‘(Girl We Got A) Good Thing’ is brazenly Beach Boys-esque in its melodies – but this isn’t a band replicating past glories to sate grumps’ receptions. Even if ‘Do You Wanna Get High?’ does sound just like the turn-of-the-century its lyrics hark back to.
It’s also – gasp! - happy. ‘Wind In Our Sail’ is hopelessly optimistic (“slicing waves at 40 knots / cumulonimbus in the sky”), ‘Jacked Up’ is more loved-up, and ‘King of the World’ disguises its darker lyrics well.
Life-changing? Perhaps not. Life-affirming, on the other hand? You betcha.
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