Weezer: our hope for the future

By JOEL HARTSE, Staff Writer

Published: February 21, 2001

The single most unifying principle of humanity, in case you were wondering, is neither the law of physics, the Golden Rule or the Ten Commandments. It isn't even really expressible in words. It's best expressed in an album cover comprised of four unassuming men standing in front of an equally unassuming blue background. The inexpressible essence of life, that elusive thing we've been looking for for so long isn't science or nature or morality; it's Weezer.

Am I joking? Perhaps not. Maybe Rivers Cuomo, Brian Bell, Pat Wilson and Mikey Welsh (and their former band mates Matt Sharp and Jason Cropper) wouldn't mean anything in say, ancient Greek or Roman times, but the works of the rock band Weezer are practically a Bible for our generation. You might even call Weezer a cultural Messiah that came as a mediator between fans of Billy Joel and KISS, then left us without ever promising to return.

The Blue Album, as it has become affectionately know, took the nation's teenagers by storm in 1994. There was nary a junior high or high school cafeteria that, at lunch time, wasn't alive with the sound of 500 young people "ooo-ooo"-ing along to "Buddy Holly." My own summer camp experience as a high school freshman was defined by a girl named Corey and Weezer's "Undone-the Sweater Song." No one who was a teenager in the early '90s was untouched by the far-reaching tendrils of the Weez. Harder rockin' than early '90s pop fare like Boyz II Men yet more accessible than Nirvana, Weezer satisfied a cultural niche for kids who weren't evil enough to listen to Metallica, but who weren't cool enough to trade their glasses for contact lenses.

Like so many great leaders, Weezer began to challenge its listeners with the advent of 1996's self-produced "Pinkerton." The polished edge was taken off, and the raw Weezerness of "Pinkerton" took many by storm. Not unlike religious figures who felt threatened by Jesus' righteous anger in the temple, some Weezer fans recoiled from this new, brash manifesto of simultaneously innocent and neurotic love. "Pinkerton" was, at first glance, a collection of poorly produced, loosely connected love songs. To myriad Weezer aficionados, though, "Pinkerton" is a piece of the collective unconscious immortalized on compact disc. The essence of Weezer, displayed on "Pinkerton," means something more than just a band ad some catchy pop songs, and it holds a deep and primal meaning to many. "Why Bother" and "El Scorcho" completely canceled out the importance of any love poem or song written before them. If you haven't heard these songs, acquire the album immediately. Sadly, "Pinkerton" faded into obscurity quickly compared to its predecessor, and the band itself vanished suddenly from the public eye.

Then the trouble began. With no competent modern rock band to lead the way, the music scene diverged in a variety of disturbing ways. Rock music all but died, only partially revived in misguided attempts by self-important bands like the Pearl Jam/U2/Metallica hybrid Creed and the allegedly "punk" Blink-182. Boy bands and teen princesses dominated the scene, and their stranglehold on pop culture has not waned; in fact, 'NSync was recently named the most financially lucrative musical enterprise of the year. This is enough for any fan of honest-to-goodness rock music to lose faith in everything.

But people get ready; Weezer is coming.

With a sold-out mini-comeback tour last summer, a new album in the final stages of mixing and a U.S. tour pending in the spring, Weezer is poised to reclaim the hearts and ears of the average music fan for 2001 and beyond. The Second Coming of the saviors of pop music is at hand.

We may not want to admit it, but pop music is the high art of today's Western culture. The most accessible art is the most universally acknowledged as great, and the most accessible art is that which we can own for $14.99 per CD. Weezer exploits the art of the 40-minute opus to its fullest, satirizing a 1950s-style innocence without completely ridiculing it and exploring worldliness and sexuality without completely surrendering. Weezer is synonymous with sincerity, shyness and love of the blossoming, nervous, as yet untouched and still unrequited, and therefore perfect, romantic love. And as good as Rivers Cuomo is at writing a geeky unrequited love song, he's got a knack for sadness, too. So mainstream yet so neurotic, so pop yet so heavy metal ... Weezer is as full of paradoxes as the Beatitudes.

It may be that I'm approaching this subject with a frightening and unnecessary reverence, but know I'm not completely alone when I say this: Weezer songs belong in my head. If the band had never existed, I think their songs would still be somewhere in my head. I just wouldn't know how to get them out.

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