Weezer - Pacific Daydream


Weezer
Pacific Daydream
2017
Spotify

I don't know how many albums we'll hear the phrase "Weezer are back..." but it seems like the world falls for this shit every single time. Ever since Pinkerton Weezer lost a step, fell into some new genre of rock-pop that people just could not understand. How could the lovable losers be shooting a music video at the Playboy Mansion? It doesn't fit. This album is dedicated to California pop with songs like "Beach Boys" "Feels Like Summer" and "Mexican Fender" all packed with catchy tunes trying to keep you locked in. The album falls almost immediately with glossy production that is so slick the only thing you would recognize as Weezer would be the guitar solos and Rivers Cuomo's voice. "Feels Like Summer" has perhaps one of the worst bridges I've ever heard from Weezer and some of the most infantile lyrics. You get so annoyed because you know how much better they can be when they are not dumbing it down. "Happy Hour" is another ridiculous premise coupled with super shiny production and little to no point. Weezer have always had this push and pull of commercial versus artistic basically changing positions album to album depending on Rivers' mood. As of late however it has been a blast of pop, sugary from start to finish. There is a world where these songs are great little pop numbers, with some pretty interesting instrumentation, but it's Weezer and they should be better.

Pacific Daydream tries so hard to be cute that it ends up being cringey. There are times where it works like on "Sweet Mary", which seems like its probably a song about weed, but those moments are few and far between. The middle section of the record has a great deal more experimentation and has more weight to it, but it can't save this record. It's thankfully a pretty short record rounding out with "Any Friend of Diane's" which reads like pages directly our of a very boring diary. The pop posture just never fits quite right on this record and it feels so heavily California centric it's hard to imagine people outside of the state really giving a shit. Maybe if there was some real heart and real emotion behind this record you could see it connecting, but Cuomo's writing is so surface level here basically recounting experiences rather than letting you into the emotion that lies beneath. I'm an unabashed Californian but this album gives you a real boring ass view of the place. I don't know when Weezer might stop with this pop stuff, but hopefully sooner rather than later.

3.0 out of 10

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