Geek expectations

"When you’re on a golden sea, you don’t need no memory. Just a place to call your own, as you drift into the zone."

– Island in the Sun, Weezer

Last May 15 was truly a great day for those of us old enough to remember yet young enough to care. After years of absence, ’90s alt stalwarts Weezer and Tool finally released new albums.

Weezer – Rivers Cuomo (vocals, guitar), Brian Bell (guitar, vocals), Mikey Welsh (bass, vocals) and Pat Wilson (drums) – has been the posterband for the downtrodden and lovelorn since its debut in 1994. Songs such as Say It Ain’t So and Buddy Holly endeared the geeks to countless like-minded losers. Weezer offered an alternative to the testosterone-pumped, hard-c*ck rockers. Rivers and company didn’t have the girls, and wrote endearing songs about it.

Even Weezer’s dweeb-y minimalist cover concept for its debut album (just the four sloppily-dressed band members against a blue background) had pretty much turned off the prevailing ethos, prompting Spin readers to vote it as one of the worst album covers.

Nonetheless, if Weezer didn’t make for a pretty memorable sight, the sweet music it dishes out was another matter. Think Buddy Holly meets the Beach Boys, then goes on a distortion binge. Cuomo’s vulnerable chops, which sound like he’s about to go sobbing on your shoulder any moment, are ably backed up by vocal harmonies. The Weezer songwriter was weaned on Yngwie Malmsteen and Kiss before his co-clerks at Tower Records turned him on to the Pixies, Sonic Youth and Jane’s Addiction. "That’s when I realized how retarded I had been," Cuomo reveals in a Spin interview.

While The Blue Album achieved a mind-boggling triple platinum, the same couldn’t be said about the second album Pinkerton, which sold fewer than 500,000. An indication, perhaps, of the in-band friction and in-Rivers tension.

These days, there seems to be less agony and more of the Happy Days stuff that the boys tapped into in their first excursion. The sabbatical surely has done them good. Change is good, change is good. Speaking of change, even one of the Weezer geeks has been replaced. Matt Sharp quit and was replaced by Welsh. Sharp had been dipping his fingers into his side project the Rentals for some time. Though Bell and Wilson (the latter was with the Rentals, too) had been flirting with side bands as well, Sharp’s need to do his own thing made him a very un-Weezer-like dude.

Of course, there’s no doubt that Weezer is Rivers Cuomo and vice versa, but you knew that already, didn’t you?

The first single Hash Pipe, while unmistakably Weezer, is also throwback to hard rock. C’mon and kick me. You got your problems... I got my hash pipe. Looking beyond the obvious "organic" references, it’s tempting to think that Rivers is probably inviting all the critics to dish out their worst. So what? There’s always the fans. "We’ve always had a loyal fan base. We’ve always sold out shows," said Rivers before Weezer’s 20-city swing to drum up hype for the latest album.

Because Weezer has always been aware of fan support, the boys were devastated with the death of sisters Mykel and Carli Allen who were killed in a car accident. The girls had ran the Weezer fan club and put out the fanzine. Weezer dedicated The Green Album to them, and had even named an island for the sisters in the Pinkerton artwork behind the CD jewelcase.

The latest album, which clocks in at 28 minutes, is a tight 10-track compilation which sees more voice harmonies and singing from the unit. Dripping with both sugar and snot, it should clear up your head and bring you to your familiar, happy place – as if that whole boy-band crap never happened.

Open your heart and the good stuff out, (in Smile); We’ll never feel bad anymore, (Island in the Sun). Welcome back, Rivers.