The biggest flashpoint came with "Make Believe". After people were disappointed by "The Green Album", but ultimately came around to realize how great it was at achieving the intended goal (even if people hated that goal), "Make Believe" is the record where people never seem to have left behind the initial hate.
I, of course, am one of the few defenders of that record, even as I find myself wanting to distance myself from Weezer as a whole. The band has veered in and and out of 'dead to me' territory, and yet that has nothing to do with their most reviled album. So why do people hate it so much?
The answer to that is pretty simple; "Beverly Hills". Despite being a huge hit, I think we can all admit it's a pretty terrible song. Rivers lyrics are an abysmal ode to how great it is to be rich, the song is so simple it can be played with one finger on the fretboard, and his almost rapping cadence takes the wink-and-nod joke of "Buddy Holly" to ludicrous proportions. It's a song that should be a ridiculous parody of culture, showing how shallow and empty it all is.... except Rivers was being completely genuine. To open an album with an ode to wanting maids scrubbing your floors is exactly the sort of thing that makes Rivers so easy to hate. That the song is also absurdly repetitive and vapid only makes matters worse.
The album's other single, "We Are All On Drugs", didn't help matters. It's supposed to be a metaphor about our addictive personalities with regard to our phones, technology, and other assorted indulgences. That doesn't really come through when Rivers is screaming "we are all on drugs!" The other lyrics about Mercedes Benz's didn't help, once again shining too bright a spotlight on Rivers' nerdiness, and his complete failure to use slang without sounding like the biggest poser in the world.
"Freak Me Out" might be the most laughed about song, as it was written about being scared of a spider. It's a laughable subject for a song to be about, and fans made no efforts to hide their contempt. I think "Hold Me" suffered a similar fate, sounding so desperate and clingy that it bordered on pathetic.
But let's be honest here; Rivers has always been a terrible lyricist. People thought him using the word "homies" made him clever, and that name-dropping Kerouac made him smart, but they were little details hiding in a sea of teenage poetry. By the time "The Green Album" came out, and you tried to decipher just what the heck "Hash Pipe" was about, it was clear Rivers was putting almost no effort into his writing.
It's funny that "Make Believe" is a more honest record than either "The Blue Album" or "The Green Album", because that means it is closest in spirit to "Pinkerton". It seems no one liked that Rivers was meditating, and trying to be a more present person, because "Make Believe" did what people had been wanting from him. We were seeing more of Rivers' true self once again. And this time, when he wasn't as miserable as the people listening to the records, they felt abandoned.
But with all of that negativity, I still find myself defending "Make Believe" more than most people. When you start from the position that Rivers is a terrible lyricist, and you know going in that he's going to annoy you the whole time with terrible lines, you can focus on his knack for writing catchy songs. That's what he delivers pretty well throughout the record. "Beverly Hills" is insufferable, but it's also sticky like a driveway on a hundred degree summer day.
"Pardon Me" has all the chord changes that made "Falling For You" an old favorite, he sings "Peace" with more passion than just about anything he ever did outside of his misanthropic years, and "Perfect Situation" is such a perfect song that it can survive even without a chorus. Even the spider-centric "Freak Me Out" is a mellow song whose melody would be absolutely beautiful if you weren't laughing at everything Rivers was singing. And then there's the closing "Haunt You Every Day", which is a more powerful version of "Only In Dreams", showing a side of Rivers other than the frustrating wannabe rock star.
Sure, "Make Believe" is a deeply flawed record. I would never say it wasn't, but let's also look at what followed. "The Red Album" was spiraling out of control, "Raditude" still can't be explained, and "Hurley" felt like a joke even before it was released. Maybe "Make Believe" is looked at as the start of Weezer's darkest days, but if I'm drawing the line, it sits on the right side of it. "Make Believe" has far more in common with the band's first three albums than what would come after.
Perhaps "Make Believe" was a poor ending to Weezer's best chapter, but the sound is unmistakable. If you listen to the record in that context, and you can ignore Rivers as much as possible, I don't think there's much difference between this record and the far more accepted "Maladroit". They're sort of sister records, and I don't think either one is the evil twin.
No one loves "Make Believe", and I'm not going to say I do either, but it's far from the train-wreck people make it out to be. Weezer's entire career is sort of playing Russian Roulette with the gun pointed down. Sometimes the gun goes off, and they shoot themselves in the foot. I don't think this was a direct hit.
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