Anyone who’s read a credible word about Weezer this millennium knows they’re not looked at favorably. They’ve read, re-read and re-read the argument that “The Blue Album” and “Pinkerton” are better, if not the only “real” Weezer albums.

This, of course, is hogwash.

Since the release of “Pinkerton” — which is the band’s second album and a huge sonic departure from “The Blue Album” — there has been no reason to hope for consistency in Weezer’s sound. Why did people think that five years after “Pinkerton” — when Weezer released another album — they would sound exactly the same as before?

Time after time, Cuomo has attested that he wrote songs that sounded cool at the time. So if you want to blame something, blame the Top 40 — which is what he’s always claimed to listen to almost exclusively. That entire miscellany from the Top 40 is filtered through Cuomo, and to a lesser extent (depending on the album), the rest of the band.

There has always been at least one out-of-place song on each record: “Surf Wax America” on “The Blue Album,” “Butterfly” on “Pinkerton,” “Hash Pipe” and “Island in the Sun” on the “Green album,” “Death and Destruction” on “Maladroit,” and “Freak Me Out” on “Make Believe.”

The argument here is, “Weezer has not become exponentially worse, but increasingly different.” And because a lot of people still like those early ’90s indie bands, they want Weezer to sound like they did in the ’90s. But there’s no reason why Weezer should be expected to sound that way ever again — they have never back-tracked stylistically.

If the switch from vague to personal in “The Blue Album” to “Pinkerton” can be accepted, why can’t the change from personal to vague, as “Pinkerton” to “The Green Album”? It’s not at all like the band completely changed; they haven’t even changed as much as the ever-popular Green Day, from snotty punk to bombastic area rock. Weezer is still moderately-paced alt-rock with an awkward emphasis on lyrics.

We’re nerds — we really are — for bickering about this the way we do. Apparently, Weezer wants to be a Top 40 band just as much as we want them to be what we love them for, be it “My Name is Jonas” or “The Damage in Your Heart.”

They are a popular rock band. The fact that there are nerds like me who quibble about them even when they’re on pronounced hiatus is evidence that when they’re at their debatably worst, they’re still better than Nickleback, Creed, Audioslave, Staind, Hinder, Disturbed and all the other Top 40 rock bands we could care less about.

> Comments