Weezer — Raditude

Raditude

Universal

Kate Harper (CHARTattack)

11/03/2009 3:12pm

A Kerrang! magazine article written around the time Weezer reunited and released the Green Album in 2001 mentioned that frontman Rivers Cuomo had literally written thousands of songs which he'd stored away in some kind of nerdy songbase. Of course, prolificity isn't always a good thing since one can often lose the capacity to self-edit. This is exactly what we've seen with every Weezer album since 2004's Maladroit, and it's the case once again on Raditude.

Like Weezer's last three studio albums before it, Raditude contains one song that's an absolute gem, and the rest of it is complete toss-away crap. The disc begins promisingly with first single "(If You're Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To," which just might be Weezer's best track since "Keep Fishin'." Unfortunately, everything implodes from there with "I'm Your Daddy" and "The Girl Got Hot." Those titles alone are vomitous.

Things get even worse with "Can't Stop Partying," which pairs "Weezer and Weezy," as its guest Lil Wayne intones on the track. Sure, it's meant to be satire, but it doesn't really work. "Trippin' Down The Freeway" provides a little bit of a glimmer of hope, but it's quickly killed like an ant being stomped on by an industrial work boot as soon as "Love Is The Answer" starts.

For some reason, Cuomo and producer Jacknife Lee (Bloc Party, Snow Patrol) thought it would be a good idea to add Indian elements like the sitar and chanting to the track. There's nothing wrong with experimentation and this worked wonders for The Beatles in the past, but it's absolutely out of place here, especially next to a track dubbed "Let It All Hang Out." As for "In The Mall," it's proof drummer Patrick Wilson never, ever needs to write another song.

There was a time when Weezer songs were like geeky poetry for awkward, pimple-covered, Coke bottle glasses and sweater-wearing 14-year-olds writing furiously in their journals while hidden away in their rooms and sucking back their asthma inhalers. But songs like those found on Raditude prove Weezer have morphed into that kid's anathema: they're now the kind of band who write tunes for idiotic, popped collar-wearing, PBR-drinkers who would probably have given the nerd kids asthma attacks from atomic wedgies after class back in high school.

Ironically, that might be kind of preferential in the end because Raditude is the kind of album that leaves you thinking you'd rather be gagged with a jock strap than listen to it again.

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