Album Review: Weezer - The Gold Album

Most of us probably have a scar somewhere on our body that reminds us of a time when we were young and stupid, perhaps that reminds us of a specific decision we made that we regretted as soon as the blood started to seep out. In musical terms, Weezer is one of those scars. There was a time when Weezer was maybe the most important band in my life. I was listening to those first four albums a ton, and I made what were at the time essential friendships on a Weezer message board. I needed Weezer back then, but that is a chapter that has come and gone in my life. Sadly, unlike my high school class that couldn't organize a way to wipe their own asses, Weezer calls us to reunions every year or two, which only serves to remind me of how much we can love and hate the past at the same time

For this latest album, Weezer is once again in nostalgic mode, trying and failing to recreate the sound that made them famous. They do this every so often, seemingly unaware that even with the same production choices, they cannot play or sing like the people they no longer are. Rivers at his age can no more pretend to be the literary misanthrope who was glued to the metaphorical wall any more than the high school quarterback acting like a big shot at the reunion when the only thing his arm has been used for over the last twenty years is pleasuring himself.

We heard this when "Shine Again" was released as a single, with it's fuzzy guitar stabs sounding like a return to "Beverly Hills", and Rivers' unique ability to sound out-of-tune while I'm sure actually hitting the note he's going for. It was a song that showed Weezer trying to sound gritty again, but with a song that was soulless enough the grit felt like applying makeup to trick people into thinking you have a black eye.

Then "We Might As Well Be Strangers" is unique for being a Weezer duet, but has to be noted sounds as if it was borrowing some melodic contour from a song off "Make Believe", which until Weezer dug an even deeper hole for themselves was considered their worst album. These are not the reminders you want to be giving your fans. Nor was "C.E.O.", which ruins everything we ever loved about "Undone" by borrowing the sonic palate and the spoken word-ness of it, turning it into a meditation on Weezer recycling their own past. It isn't a 'meta' song so much as an admission Weezer knows they haven't made, and cannot make, anything that endured with the audience since about 2001. Rivers admits he's going through the motions of recreating the past, which is honest, but also a complete charade. We should not be applauding him for pandering to the audience if it isn't what he has his heart set on, although it's hard to tell what Rivers is actually passionate about, considering the passionless way he usually sings.

This record wants to be a new "Pinkerton". The guitars are crusty in the same way, and when Rivers starts singing about being gaslit, it has echoes of his pleas to turn a lesbian straight so someone would fuck him. In this case, he is the victim of the psychological warfare, but his ultimate message to give in and "say yes" is the worst thing he could say. The song is basically a declaration that he doesn't want to be in Weezer anymore, but the audience and the reaction more or less forces him to continue on. That explains a lot, doesn't it?

The bullshit continues when Rivers starts to sing in "Hoops" about having to scan a QR code to buy a toaster. It's not a compelling topic for a song, and it's written without an ounce of interesting perspective. Rivers is once again at his worst as a lyricist throughout the record, whether it's this or when he mentions how his mother told him to comb his hair. It's all trite nonsense that gets in the way of saying something that actually matters. I know no one turns to Weezer for insight on the human condition, but there's no way to relate to lyrics that are this vapid, sung by a voice that sounds absurd when trying to inject emotion. This is very much taking the old adage about someone singing the phone book as a challenge. Rivers throws words together, but they don't form songs that have meaning. It's very much the same as when he wrote "Where's My Sex" based on a mispronunciation by his kid. It might be an amusing slip of the tongue in the moment, but that's not enough to write an entire song around.

But I knew all of this before I ever listened to a note of this album. Weezer has been terrible since at least "The Red Album", and the periodic check-ins with them have less to do with seeing if they will ever improve, and more to do with me checking myself for early-onset senility. The day I start to like new Weezer music again, I will know my brain fog is something to be concerned with, and not merely an artifact of depression.

What Weezer prove every time they release one of these records is that life is not like school, and you can write a failing grade in any color. I appreciate the nostalgia of the production (even if the actual grittiness of this one is like a ChatGPT recreation of "Pinkerton"), and this might be the best melodic writing Rivers has done in quite a while, but as an album I still find myself thinking it would say something about myself I wouldn't like if I told you I enjoyed this album. It's an improvement, but that doesn't make it good. Maybe in 1998 when we were all still young and stupid, but not now, not when we're all as old or older than our heroes were when we first called them washed up.