Weezer (2019)

I wandered into Weezer's so-called Black Album the way I usually wander into newish albums these days, backing in as one attractive track has led to multiples on my streaming playlist—which doesn't happen as often as I'd like to be frank. Re: Weezer I'm old enough to remember when the Blue Album was just their first album and people didn't know what to make of it across the din of the Roman pillars of grunge. I never hated them and was inclined to defend them. I remember the first couple albums as lightweight but winning in a general way, and sort of kept an eye on them for a while. But it's been so long I entirely missed all the new century's colors albums (starting with Green in 2001, Red in 2008, White in 2016, and Teal last year along with Black) plus whatever dramas of artistic development they have portended. Napster in its infinite wisdom classes Weezer as "Modern Power Pop" and that's good enough for me as I am always inclined to excuse myself instantly from any discussion of power pop, especially definitional. My first love affair here was with "High as a Kite," which is not actually what it seems. Sonically, it does sound like a lush ode to cannabis in the era of legalization but actually they are quite clear from the start: "I think I'm going parasailing / Miles above, it's so serene." Whether this is parasailing in a hazy afternoon Brian Wilson room of the mind is much harder to say, of course. The day outing may not cost that much, after all, but to indulge the seaside adventure you do need to live near a seaside offering it. What I like is someone making "high as a kite" sound so beautifully serene. I like to spend afternoons inside this song. And, like a classic two-sided hit, it also delivered a companion piece in "Living in L.A.," which it's obvious even from the title is about agonies of urban life and possibly shallow celebrity. The chorus goes "This girl I like / I'm talking 'bout this girl I like" but I forever persist in hearing "town" for "girl" somehow—and so, with such subtle negations, rank clichés ("We sacrifice our lives for rock and roll"), and other ambiguities, the words abstract into neutral focus and let the surging open electric guitar chords and charging rhythm drive it. Play loud in cars with shades on. Drive fast. The last draw came later, when "The Prince Who Wanted Everything" somehow made it onto the playlist with its ecstatic drone, thrumming guitar chords, and delicious "do do do do." So I checked out the album and found even a few more winners: "Byzantine," "Can't Knock the Hustle," "Too Many Thoughts in My Head" (as well as a real dog, wrecked by the words, in "California Snow"). Peyton Thomas, in a somewhat baffling review at Pitchfork, argued against the Black Album, assigning it a 5.7 rating and writing, "A sense of tonal whiplash ensues, and the album's highlights are best enjoyed in isolation." Happily, in my case, that's pretty much exactly how it happened, but I would rate it more like 7.8.