Steal the Spotlight

Weezer - Red Album

Home
Album and DVD reviews
Concert Review
Contest
Interviews
Photo Album
Links
Videos

Rivers Cuomo - vocals, guitar

Patrick Wilson - drums, backing vocals

Brian Bell - guitar, backing vocals

Scott Shriner - bass, backing vocals

           

             Three years removed from their 5th studio album Weezer is back with another colorful adventure. Another self-titled album also known as the Red Album was released in June of 2008. The ten track album, which has been labeled as an ‘experimental’ album, includes a lot of new ideas and new sounds to Weezer. After hitting it huge with the first album Blue and then slipping into the background album after album since then, Red seems to be trying to bring this band back to the Blue days. Red begins with the track “Troublemaker.” The shortest installment on the album is a very catchy tune that could find its way on MTV much like “Beverly Hills” did. It’s full of quirky lines that sometimes don’t fit, but it very clever all the same. The next track “The Greatest…” begins with crowd noise and adds in different variations of a Shaker Hymn. It is very odd as it goes through all the different types of music. It is worth at least one listen. The first single “Pork and Beans” spins off 3rd on the track listing. With lyrics like “I'll eat my candy with the pork and beans/Excuse my manners if I make a scene” it’s just strange, strangely fun. “Heart Songs” is one that you have to focus on the lyrics as it possibility refers to when they came together the first time, saying “Back in 1991, I wasn’t having any fun until my roommate said come on and put a brand new record one. Had a baby on it, it was naked one it.” Try to guess who they were referring to in that little bit. Ending the first half of the records is “Everybody Get Dangerous.” The track reminds me of Red Hot Chili Peppers track vocally. It’s one of the best on the album. It does have weird lyrics like many of Weezer’s songs, but its super fun and should be a great live tune, if not a single in the future. “Dreamin’” was a surprisingly good track in the beginning with an upbeat, country-type feel to it until middle part way through it and it goes south quick.  “Thought I Knew” throws in a drum machine into the mix as “Automatic” lets Pat do some of the singing in it and it doesn’t sound half bad. The album wraps up with “The Angel and the One.” It is a soft slow track that gets the listener to hold up the light or cell phone and sway back and forth. Overall the album is a rollercoaster ride. It starts off strong and then dips only to come back and finish in the middle. There are spots off the younger years strength and then of the blenders that all bands have once and a while. There are a few tracks that can make there way into a quirky part of a movie or MTV and others will die after the first listening.

 

Rating: 7.5 out of 10

My favorite tracks:

Troublemaker, Everyone Get Dangerous

 

Track List:

1.      Troublemaker

2.      The Greatest Man That Ever Lived

3.      Pork and Beans

4.      Heart Songs

5.      Everybody Get Dangerous

6.      Dreamin’

7.      Thought I Knew

8.      Cold Dark World

9.      Automatic

10.  The Angel and the One

 

Website (s): www.weezer.com

Feedback, submissions, ideas? Contact Us 2006-2013