Single Review: Weezer - King Of The World

Weezer has just announced the release of their new, self-titled album for April 1st, and unveiled a new single for the occasion.

Let's start with the song. After releasing the god-awful "Thank God For Girls", and the decent "Do You Wanna Get High?", there was no telling what we would get this time out. This song falls squarely in-between the two, with lyrics that are still as vapid as anything a 14 year old could write in his spiral bound notebook, but the actual melodic construction is solid. It feels like a song that could have been a decent track on the last album, which exceeded every expectation I could have had, but that's about it. It lacks any kind of spark, and Rivers continues to be the most lazy, dejected vocalist in all of rock. He doesn't sound like he cares, which given the quality of his words, isn't hard to believe. This song is ok, but it wouldn't even be good enough to be on "Make Believe". It's late-era Weezer, which means you have to have suffered their Stockholm syndrome to enjoy it as more than a fleeting bit of entertainment.

But there's more to talk about than just the song here. Weezer has, officially, become the worst running joke in all of music. By going back to the well of self-titled albums, Weezer is showing that they truly are devoid of anything approaching creativity. I thought they had made strides with the previous album, which I honestly enjoyed, but here we have then reverting back to their recent form, turning out songs that anyone in their 40s should be embarrassed to have ever heard, let alone written.

Weezer gained their fame writing songs that awkward teenagers connected to, which leads us to the sad part. While twenty years have passed, and those fans are well into adulthood, Weezer has spent every year since then trying to turn back the hands of time, pandering to the next wave of pre-teens, rather than growing with the audience who loved them (at the time) unconditionally. The amount of pandering they do to youth is pathetic, and even though I'm not as old as Rivers, I realize that I'm already well beyond the point of thinking it's acceptable.

I write this as a bit of an explanation, and to get some thoughts down, because I'm fairly certain I'm done with Weezer. I have no plans to review the new album, or even to listen to it. It may happen if it falls into my lap, but I won't be looking forward to it.

My time with Weezer will now be spent purely in nostalgia.