James Stutter

Caveat: I have in NO way come close to listening to all of James's albums. The overwhelming experience I have with them is in the albums James, Seven and Laid.  So when I stalk about things like the progression of James as a band I really don't know what I'm talking about.  I'm only pretending to know what I'm talking about.  So...there.

Stutter is one freaking crazy album.  I told you the other day that I wish I still felt this way.  I've tried to put my finger on what I mean by "this" but I can't really put into a cogent thought; just something like this: hopped up on youth and indecision and confidence and potential and romance and arrogance and talent.  I used to have all those things and when I did I was awesome.  But I don't still feel that way.  I'm an old cynic now.  I don't sense one moment of cynicism on this album.  Just crazy key changes and changes in tempo and hollering and ululations.  I see Booth jumping up and down and spinning and shaking his head back and forth while singing in the studio.  And is bandmates smiling and laughing at him and also expressing themselves in the same spirit in their own way.

I like superhero origin story movies.  I think bands have similar experiences.  One day they're like the rest of us and then their first album comes out and--for good or evil--they're never the same.  In movies the heroes usually become more adept at using their skills over time.  But I have to say Stutter doesn't feel like an origin story.  They definitely show steps of passing through the rights and passages of life but trace them back to Stutter and it feels like an organic process.

Especially Tim Booth's voice.  Man that doesn't show the least bit of immaturity.  It's as strong and steady and flawless as it is in future albums.  It's a finely sharpened glass edge from the get go.  Evidenced in the extended holding of the solitary note at 2:25 in "Why So Close." Thoroughly unflinching.  So impressive.  That's not the work of a superhero trying to find find their footing.  

Speaking of "Why So Close." Far and away the song on the album that resonates with me more than others.  First of all, I just love it.  Lyrics and interesting and I love the acoustic guitar.  And I love stories about the history of the American West.  Whether or not that was the intended thought behind the song, that's what I take from it.  And, like I said the other day, this song remind me of REM's "Swan Swan H." The acoustic guitar, the feeling of war and death and destruction and the poetic lyrics that describe them. 

I always wonder how foreigners view the history and settling of the American West.  I'm reading a book on the history of the Eiffel Tower.  I didn't know it was built in conjunction with the 1889 Paris World Fair.  As part of America's submissions to the fair Buffalo Bill came over with his Wild West Show.  His show was one of the first ways that people--even in America--had any experience with the settling of the west.  Anyway, so I think it's interesting to hear James use western imagery.

I also have some oddly personal connections to "Why So Close."  First of all I've lived in the west my whole life and I love it.  I love the history and the myth and the land and all that comes with it.  I know this is the land of someones forefathers and many of those forefathers are mine.  My ancestors came from Denmark and settled in Sanpete County.  There's something shadowy about saying "I feel the blood of my ancestors on the ground I live on" but I really do.  

Second, my dad's father was named Ivan which is so strange since he was born and raised in rural Utah.  I actually have no idea what the story is behind his name but he definitely didn't get it because he was from Russia.  So when I read about Ivan in the second verse I visualize my grandfather building a wall of lead around his house in Manti, Utah--furious and desperate.

Third, my dad's best friend growing up is named Wayne. To us, growing up, he was Uncle Wayne. We didn't see him a lot, but I think of him whenever I see/hear the name Wayne.  So he is part of this verse as my grandfather is part of the previous one.  So I envision my dad and his best friend Wayne watching my grandpa through dark glasses. Whatever that may mean.  

One additional thought about this song: I thought Booth was singing "Warhead phones since he was born" and I thought it was an awesome phrase--reminded me of "Miss Atomic Bomb"--until I looked it up and saw it was "Wore headphones..." and then I felt like an idiot.

So those are some thoughts on Stutter.  Clearly "Why So Close" is the stand out for me.  What a song.  

Josh's review of Hurley

 At this point in his career I have to accept that Cuomo knows exactly what he’s doing.  I’ve always felt like he was lost.  (Or hoped he was.)  That he’s been bumping around in a dark room for the last 25 years trying to find a trapdoor that will take him back to the Blue Album.  That he’s still trying to cover up for Pinkerton.

But I’m wrong.  This is the first time I’ve taken a critical look at one of their albums but I know it’s no fluke.  Cuomo knows exactly what he’s doing with his career.

I had some high school friends that started a band.  The named their band Blow Me.  Only at the risk of sounding offensive to adults they clamed that their name was Blowme (rhymes with “home”).  So it was wink-wink type of thing.

That’s kind of how I feel about 21st Century Weezer.  Layers upon layers of gags.  And it’s all lost on me.

“Time Flies” is my favorite song on the album and I really, really like it.  I like the steady drum beat, the 8-track sounding vocals, the acoustic guitar  It doesn’t feel like he’s trying to play a trick on me. It sounds like a great recording of a live performance.  It’s no secret I like lo-fi music that sounds like it’s only partially finished and that’s how I feel about this song.  I really like it.  

“Ruling Me”: they lyric “my ocular nerve went pop, zoom” is so freaking stupid.  

“Unspoken” is a pretty good song.  Second favorite.  I appreciate that he acknowledges that he wrote it after getting married.  I really like that.  No jokes.  Feels really sincere.  Not like he’s talking about girls while he and his friends light bottle rockets in the empty field behind his house.  The flute at 1:30 reminded me of Dave Matthews.  I totally dig when the song blows up at the end.

“Smart Girls”: When Make Believe came out and the single Beverly Hills was released I was talking to a friend of mine name Jordan.  I was lamenting what a stupid song Beverly Hills is and he defended it as an attempt to make an ironic statement about people chasing after the empty rewards of money and fame.  I just kind of laughed at him until I realized he was serious.  And maybe he’s right.  And that’s how I feel about “Smart Girls.”  Like I laugh at it until someone tells me it’s legitimate.  

I just can’t grasp Cuomo’s obsession with “girls.”  I wonder if there is a Weezer song that doesn’t mention or refer to “girls.”  The best I can tell Cuomo hasn’t even come close to passing the Beckdel Test.  Like, not the same galaxy.

Where’s My Sex: Incompresibly stupid.  I can’t even describe how stupid it is.  Like offensively stupid.  This seems like Weezer’s absolute nadir. 

To sum up: I like Weezer but I hate their music.

Hurley

Hurley should be terrible. The name and the album cover are utterly disposable, it came a year after another disposable album with a terrible name and a stupid album cover. So, I had zero expectations when I put it on, especially after the fairly dispiriting listens of Maladroit, the Red Album, the White Album, and Pacific Daydream each of which just kept hammering home the point that Weezer isn't really the fun, brash, nerdy, charming band that I thought they were with the Blue album. They are, in fact, the very essence of The Ugly American: loud, crass, dumb, and immature. 

Honestly, so much listening to Weezer reminded me of the criticism levelled at America by the British botanist in It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World:

And this positively infantile preoccupation with bosoms! In all my time in this wretched, godforsaken country, the one thing that has appalled me most of all is this preposterous preoccupation with bosoms. Don't you realize they have become the dominant theme in American culture: in literature, advertising and all fields of entertainment and everything. I'll wager you anything you like: if American women stopped wearing brassieres, your whole national economy would collapse overnight.

But, ohmygoodness, that first listen of Hurley was a shocker. It was like like they had figured out how to take the sound of 00s punk pop and married it with the traditional 90s Weezer sound AND it seemed that Rivers had finally figured out how not to write lyrics that were (a) misogynistic, (b) completely obsessed with how to get girls, and (c) basic. (I don't even know how to describe that last criticism. It's like talking to someone who is actively trying to bore you so that you will leave them alone, so they provide a stark description of what they have done in a day with no adjectives.)

Trainwrecks was the highlight of my first listen. A soaring teenage/early 20 somethings anthem that celebrates life even when it's a disaster. I played it five times in a row and thought, "This is the best thing they have done since the Blue Album." (Yeah, I know, total cliche.) But everything else seemed uniformly good except for the excretable "Where's My Sex?" 

(The scene: Rivers, sitting on a piano bench in his front room, strumming a couple of chords, humming to himself, scribbling some thoughts, playing another chord, sits straight up, and, in awe, says, "That's it." He starts writing furiously and then calls to his wife. "Honey, the muse has spoken to me! Listen to this!" He then plays "Where's My Sex?" on acoustic guitar after which his wife takes his guitar gently from his hands and snaps the neck over her knee. She then calmly picks up the lyric sheet, holds it an inch in front of his face, and says "Where is it? I'll show you where it is." Ripping the lyric sheet into long strips, she licks each strip, rolls each into a spitball, and shoves each ball up Rivers's nose. )

I should have written my review right then. Instead, flush on excitement about my new favorite Weezer album, I made a crucial mistake. I pushed play again. And again. Like frolicking through a verdant meadow, those second and third passes revealed some unfortunately rank things that sunk deep into the treads of my soul.

Like any decent tragedy, the seeds of my sadness were sown in the very thing that I once loved. Up top, I said that Hurley's title and picture seemed so disposable that it was for 2010 only and nothing beyond. Well, Trainwrecks has a jarringly disposable line: "We don't update our blogs." It's so banal and completely out of place with the larger theme of the song. It's lazy and, eleven years later, so anachronistic. (Blogs?? Who does that any more?)

And, just like that, things started spinning out of control. I started picking up the classic Rivers loutishness in Memories, Ruling Me, Run Away, and Smart Girls and my excitement turned into bitter disappointment at getting suckered by Weezer yet again. The other day, I gave Hurley a farewell listen, and, to my surprise, I realized I had short-changed about half the album: Unspoken, Hang On, Brave New World, and Time Flies are all really good songs and I found myself able to acknowledge that Trainwrecks considerable strengths outweighs its one bad line. Which makes this the best album ever named after a character from Lost.