Weezer - Weezer (White Album)

Weezer
Weezer (White Album)
2016
Spotify

This is not the first time that people have heralded a new Weezer album as their "return to form", and probably won't be the last. However White Album as ambitious as it may seem feels more like a slip back into the days when Weezer seemed to almost throw away their die hard fans for more mainstream pop success. Much of the album is hollow and vapid, singing about LA girls and living in California. Weezer taking on Beach-pop just feels so strange and uncomfortable, but it seems to be the way things are going these days. Most of the tracks are about some kind of falling in love, maybe with an occasional twist ("Do You Wanna Get High?"), but it is so childish and quite honestly Rivers should be past this kind of stuff. It made sense when He was the fresh faced kid singing about his insecurities and the girls He would never get, but at this point we know it's bullshit. Where him getting small and discussing the minute details used to be the best part of Weezer, now it just feels like an after thought that has to be included. The production on this record is also all over the place. Sometimes it is muddled and Rivers' over dubbed voice sings just barely over the mess, while other times the sound is just plain boring. "Jacked Up" is probably the only track that has some real spirit behind it and it is the first time that they depart from what seems like a pretty strict song structure formula.

Putting all this into perspective however you realize that the reason this album really doesn't sound great is because Weezer have given us greatness in the past. We know how truly amazing they can be when they are at their best and being mediocre and boring is just stringing the audience along. The beach sound feels so foreign for them as well, like they are dipping their toes into a new sound, but it is one that they just can't seem to shake. Some of the tracks on the record are perfectly fine and I even find myself going back to "Endless Bummer", but I would never listen to any one of these tracks over anything off the blue album, it just doesn't stack up. It is hard to tell with Weezer if this is just a fad, or if they are pulling one over on you, but since they have stuck with this sound for a little bit of time now it seems like this is the direction they want to be going. There will be apologists for this record as there are with almost anything that Weezer does but it is not the diehards or even the casual fan that Weezer seems to be going for with this record. It is so watered down, and so generic that it will only appeal to those people who don't know what the best of Weezer actually sounds like. White Album simply is just a pass.

5.8 out of 10