Twenty One Pilots - Heathens review

It's Halloween! I love October 31st, and I couldn't let it pass without reviewing the most appropriate song currently hanging around the charts, 'Heathens' by Twenty-one pilots (Currently number 3 on the Billboard hot 100). I like TOP, they have a very large volume of very good material - the only problem I have with them is their almost cult-like fan base, which isn't their fault and is the main topic of 'Heathens' as a song.

The lyrics are pretty great for the most part, mainly because they manage to fit in with the 'Suicide Squad' movie the song was likely commissioned for, and relate the story of the supervillains to their fanbases growing troubles. The cult fanbase of TOP is unlike any band since 'My Chemical Romance', and the duo acknowledging this and actively trying to mend it through a song isn't the likely basis for a hit, but it has two things to thank for it's success:

The first is 'Suicide Squad', which might not have done very well critically or commercially but meant that 'Heathens' had a massive marketing push behind it, since it was a large part of the movie's promotion. The production on the song is what's kept it around though, with the creepy minimalism of the verses building up to the explosive drop, filled with a strangely creepy croak sound.

The song does have flaws though, the chorus is repeated just a little too often and the song could do with some variation in the second drop - such as a solo - since it's otherwise exactly the same but with less power due to less build-up. The main problem however is the pitch shifting. Tyler's vocals are sandwiched between extremely high and low pitched voices that are annoying and don't add anything to the song.

Nonetheless, 'Heathens' is a decent song that will likely have a long lifetime because it's going to be in Halloween playlists for the next decade at least. Twenty One-Pilots have released much better music, but if I had to listen to 'Heathens' once every year, I certainly wouldn't complain.

7/10

 

Why I hate modern EDM

Let me just start off by saying that, obviously, there is a fair amount of good modern EDM in existence. Certain artists such as Avicii and Robin Schulz seem to be fairly competent, but the massive majority of EDM in the mainstream is terrible. Notice I said mainstream so you can come to me all you want with your underground producers, I'm talking about the big guns.

So why do I hate EDM? Well, first we have to see how it even broke into the mainstream. It seems to have originated from Disco in the underground and gradually became popular in the UK through the popularisation of House, Garage and Drum & Bass among a bunch of other genres. By the early 2000s loads of European EDM was clogging up the charts - Darude's 'Sandstorm' for example. Still, this wasn't bad at all, and although I wouldn't voluntarily listen to much of it I could definitely jam to it if it came on the radio. EDM quietly bubbled along as one of those genres that would quite regularly have large hits but was still semi-obscure in Britain, until a combination of big tracks in 2006-7. 

These were 'Put your hands up 4 Detroit' by Fedde Le Grand, which was a number one smash in the UK that was arguably the first absolutely massive song to have a very conventional drop, and just before it was 'Sexyback' by Justin Timberlake which introduced the general public to heavy artificial instrumentation. Another significant event of 2006 was a little DJ called David Guetta breaking into the mainstream with a mash up of his minor hit 'Love don't let Me Go' with another song, 'Walking Away', that led to a top 3 smash in Britain. 

This is also when EDM started to break the US charts, and by 2009 the Black Eyed Peas had cemented it as a chart powerhouse with 'I Gotta Feeling' (Which was produced by Guetta) and 'Boom Boom Pow'. So now we can finally start to look at my problems with EDM.

1. They all sound the same

Firstly, is it just me or do all EDM songs use the exact same instrumental effects every time? Think of how many songs currently on radio rotation use the 'handclap' or 'Click' effects as percussion. Plus many EDM artists use the same sounds in almost every song they release. Try telling one Kygo drop from another - it's pretty difficult. Obviously, in every genre there are artists who will follow the trends, but in EDM it seems like nobody isn't following them, making a whole load of very similar sounding music.

2. They lack personality (i. 'Trademark sounds')

One of my absolute favourite genres is synthpop, which has some qualities very similar to EDM. As you would expect they both have a heavy reliance on synths and artificial instrumentation. However, comparing these genres brings up my next problem - the lack of personality most EDM has. Very few producers actually sing on their creations instead relying on trademark sounds for any kind of recognition. Unfortunately the problem is that since so many big DJs seem to move to whatever's popular 'Trademark sounds' are quickly tossed away. Look at what happened to DJ snake, where his signature pitch shifting vocal-melding drops were quickly watered down to the point where two songs in the UK top 10 currently use them. 

2. They lack personality (ii. Guest artists)

Even worse than this lack of personality is the over-use of guest vocalists. For me, the mark of a good EDM song is if it can stand on it's own without vocals - think 'Levels' by Avicii or 'Animals' by Martin Garrix. However, most EDM artists insist on shoving a guest vocalist onto every single they released, lots of the time seemingly for guaranteed success rather than because the artist fits the song. For example, I see no reason why Justin Beiber is on 'Let me love you' by DJ Snake, his voice actively drains energy from the song. Compare this with 'Turn down for What', where Lil Jon is pretty much perfect for the song. It whiffs of selling-out.

Despite having the choice of most singers working today, most charting EDM seems to throw about singers who all sound very similar. At this point I've heard so many husky-voiced women and whimpering European men behind identical sounding instrumentals that they tend to bore me - even if the instrumental is banging. 

3. Worthless lyrics

Because so much popular EDM is written to be sung by another artist the lyrics tend to fall into three very wide categories: Partying, Love and Heartbreak. Out of these 3 only partying is explored in any kind of depth and even then... it's partying, it's on of the least deep things in existence. Most pop music is about Love and Heartbreak, but lots of it also goes further than 'I'm really sad', which is where most EDM draws the line. When people point out that songs on the radio aren't about anything, EDM is the main reason why. 

4. Drops are getting less and less listenable

As EDM slowly runs out of ideas for different drops, they seem to get worse and worse. The current trend is pitch shifting in the drop (As mentioned earlier) which is starting to become unbearable. The first case I heard of this on the radio was 'Runaway (U + I)' by Galantis which was ear-splittingly high pitched to the point that it actually gave me several headaches. Apparently the song appealed to enough people to make it a huge top 5 hit and the song has led to a large amount of imitators. Right now, 'Starving', 'Sexual' by NEIKED and 'In the Name of Love' by Martin Garrix all have electronic screams mirroring the vocal line of the pre-drop that make me turn off the radio. 

The other kind of drops are percussive, empty sounding drops that have no melody and sound downright bad. This kind of drop has fewer hits to it's name - it seems like even the public's got tired of it by now - But still songs like 'Be right there' by Diplo and Sleepy Tom and 'Where are U now' by Skrillex and Diplo have these ugly drops, I think trying to simulate 'Animals' by Martin Garrix which had an  incredible percussive drop. 

5. Overexposure

This happens to most popular genres at some point, but EDM has constantly been overexposed for years now. I really got into music at the start of 2011, just before 'Party Rock Anthem' made the drop massively popular once again, meaning that so far I haven't passed a year where EDM has had a large chunk of the chart - especially since I live in the UK where it's much easier for EDM to crossover. I'm so burnt out on EDM that I no longer listen to top 40 radio. Most genres that spend this long in the limelight burnt out quickly (Think of the pop-punk crazes in 2000 and 2005-6), but EDM has been lodged in our ears for over 5 years now and has barely changed in that time. 

The newest colour of EDM is tropical house which is easily the most bland sounding EDM yet, hence why it's been embraced by the blandest pop artists (Justin Bieber, Sia, Maroon 5). As Rap, R&B and Rock continue to produce great albums every month, EDM is dawdling along, having incredible success but very little impact on anything other than the artists nobody cared about in the first place.

Nonetheless, I challenge you to make your own opinion of EDM - music is very subjective after all - so here is the most recent (as of writing) Billboard top 50 for dance and EDM (Although I definitely wouldn't call some of the stuff on here EDM). It has a few great songs (Flume, Kunes and Clean Bandit for example) but the rest is pretty much what I've described. Here you go:

Weezer - White album review

So We've finally reached the most recent album in Weezer's discography - their tenth overall and fourth self-titled, the 'White album'. Released on April 1st 2016, it was created after the band's manager suggested making a beach album and the final piece is obviously inspired by the Beach Boys, as well as by 90s Weezer. But does it carry on the streak of good albums after 'Everything will be Alright in the End' in 2014?

Yes it does, and does it with the most cohesive, catchy and fun album since 'Blue'. The LP starts off with 'California Kids', a fantastic opener with great guitar work and an explosive hook. 'Wind our Sail' is more of the same, but is even more innocent and fun that 'California Kids', with lyrics referencing a bunch of scientists and experiments.

'Thank God for Girls' was panned by many fans on release, but I feel like, as this was the first single, everyone was on edge about whether 'EWBAITE' had been a fluke or if the band had finally got themselves together. 'Girls' is like few other Weezer songs, with piano led verses, no final chorus and far more panicky sounding than we've heard for a while. The best thing I find about the song is what many fans hated - the lyrics. Finally, Cuomo is writing quirky, creative lyrics dripping with imagery ("I'm like an Indian Fakir tryna meditate on a bed of nails with my pants pulled down"). Plus, the lyric video is either the best or worst thing ever depending n how much you like cannolis.

'(Girl we got a) Good Thing' is the sunniest song on 'White', and is the most obviously inspired by the Beach Boys, both combining to give the song an incredibly strong atmosphere of walking down a California beach. 'Do You Wanna Get High' has an equally strong atmosphere, but one of a claustrophobic smoky room. The song sounds as if it came from a weird period between 'Blue' and 'Pinkerton', and is apocalyptic, trippy and funny all at the same time.

The next single off 'White' is 'King of the World', a personal song that Cuomo wrote to his wife that reaches the same sweet spot 'Blue' had so that the song is both detailed enough to be personal and vague enough to be relatable. Track 7 is 'Summer Elaine and Drunk Dori' which despite having a 'Raditude' sounding title is another great summer tune with a soaring chorus and Radiohead reference to boot.

'L.A. Girlz' is the best song on the album, with unexpectedly great lyrics, verses that hit with the power of a chorus and a chorus that sounds like the best thing ever. Even better is the falsetto bridge leading into the best guitar solo on the album, which is arguably the highlight of the whole disc. 'Jacked up' manages to be the most disturbing beach song ever, with Cuomo straining his falsetto to it's max in the chorus and the whole song drenched in staccato piano chords.

The album goes out with 'Endless Bummer', a momentous, building story of one boy's heartbreak at the beach that the whole album has been hinting towards. It's the best acoustic guitar balled since 'Butterfly', and ends with another amazing solo that gives 'L.A. Girlz' a run for it's money. So that's the White album, a bouncy, sunshine filled album that is in my opinion even better than 'EWBAITE' - I love every song and it's easily on the same level as 'Blue' for me, so I can do nothing but give Weezer's tenth LP an appropriate
10/10

Weezer - Everything will be Alright in the End review

'Everything will be Alright in the End' is the album that got me into Weezer. I had heard of the band through 'Beverly Hills' and 'Buddy Holly' and so when, in early 2015, I saw this song land on a bunch of 'Best album of the year' lists I decided to check it out - and now I've reviewed nearly all of their discography so it obviously did it's job. The album was released in October 2014, four years after 'Hurley', a massive break by Weezer's standards - and it appears that the break did Rivers Cuomo, Brian Bell, Patrick Wilson and Scott Shriner a lot of good. Because 'EWBAITE' is easily the best Weezer album since the 90s.

It starts off with the anthemic 'Ain't got nobody', one of the best album openers in all of Weezer's discography and it even has what Weezer had sorely been missing for several albums - Guitar solos! 'Back to the Shack' is a much appreciated apology for the likes of 'Raditude', that still manages to rock out and even has a cool music video set on the moon. Next, 'Eulogy for a rock band' carries on the run of great songs, with lyrics paying homage to the greats of rock, showing the band once again reminding themselves that they are a ROCK BAND and not popstars who put Lil Wayne on their tracks. 

'Lonely Girl' is the best song thus far, with a non-creepy song about girls that's extremely refreshing, as it was beginning to become unbearable. It's also the most 'Blue album' sounding song on the album. 'I've had it up to here' is an outstanding tune about Cuomo's anger at fans rejecting all of his experiments over the past decade, while finally admitting that he was trying to appeal to the masses maybe a tad too much. Nonetheless, the soaring falsetto in the chorus and the crunchy guitars locking perfectly with the backing vocals. 

'The British are Coming' is quite jarring in lyrical terms - a historical account of events in the American Revolutionary War - but is awesome nonetheless. 'Da Vinci' and 'Go Away' are my least favourite songs off the record, but are still pretty great. 'Da Vinci' suffers from whistling and some pop culture references that will age pretty poorly. 'Go Away' has the opposite, with overly simple lyrics about a break-up, but it is great to hear a female voice on a Weezer song - provided by Bethany Cosentino from Best Coast - and both songs do a good job of carrying momentum.

Then the album hits another soaring high with 'Cleopatra', a song with amazing guitar licks sprinkled throughout and the best bridge of any Weezer song in a decade. It's hard to believe Weezer could top this, but they do! 'Foolish Father' starts off dark and brooding, before the chorus has an apologetic tone and the outro has an uplifting choir sending us off with the title and message of the album - 'Everything will be Alright in the End'. This is all held together by the main lyrics of the track, which act as a thematic bookend to 'Say it Ain't So' and show Cuomo finally realising what his father went through due to the experiences he's had himself.

And so the album end- Huh? What are these three songs tacked onto the end? That would be 'The Futurescope Trilogy', a group of two instrumentals built around the central piece 'Anonymous'. They have no reason to be on the disc, but I'm so glad that they are. It's like Weezer making up for all those years with basic 4 chord pop songs with 4 minutes of pure guitar, bass and drum perfection and arguably the most anthemic song on all of 'EWBAITE' sandwiched between them. When Weezer come back after a so many mediocre albums and end their comeback album with the most incredible closer of any album released the entire year, you know they haven't just returned - they've returned better than anyone could have ever predicted.

9.5/10

Weezer - Hurley review

In 2010 Weezer were a wreck. They had lost all but their most loyal fans after the horror of 'Raditude', and had been dropped by their label. This makes 'Hurley' a really weird album, because instead of having some breakdown Weezer quietly passed out their best album since 2002 and barely anyone noticed. 

The lead single didn't do the album any favours - it's not great. The chorus is good and all but spoken/shouted lyrics about "Dutch kids who vomit then have sex" are a bit creepy. Luckily tracks 2 and 3 are great. 'Ruling me' is like no other Weezer song in existence before it but is catchy and everything you would want. Then 'Trainwrecks' is very similar in sound and feel, but builds and climaxes like few other Weezer tracks do, making it the best song on the disc.

'Unspoken' is another great song that sounds like very little Weezer has done before and the first 'angry' Weezer song to actually land any impact for a very long time. 'Hang on' is almost euphoric in it's backing vocals until at about 2 minutes the song becomes desperately sad and does it all with the not-quite-typical feel most of 'Hurley' has. Sandwiched between these songs is the infamous 'Where's my Sex' which is pretty much a novelty single that is mildly annoying before you get the joke and mildly pleasing after you get it.

'Hang on' is another atypical but great song, which also has Michael Cera on backing vocals,before 'Smart Girls' unfortunately packs itself into the category of 'Slightly creepy songs Cuomo's written about girls', but nonetheless has a nice instrumentals. I realise I've neglected to mention the music of Hurley so far, and although it varies slightly it is on the whole more edgy and raw than 'Raditude' (Although a 'Take That' album is more raw than 'Raditude') and feels more Weezer-y than any album since 'Maladroit', although there's much more palm muting this time round.

'Brave New World' is alright, but fails to really stand out. The album closes with 'Time Flies' which has extremely lo-fi production giving the song an old VHS feel that acts as a nice link to 'Memories' as they both tackle nostalgia in different ways. Overall, 'Hurley' is like no Weezer album before or after it and has ended up being their most underrated album.
8/10

Weezer - Raditude review

Ah 'Raditude'... What can I say? I kind of love this album but only because of how unbelievably bad it is. If 'Make Believe' is an unbearable Adam Sandler comedy, 'Raditude' is The Room by Tommy Wiseau. Hopefully you'll see what I mean by the end of the review. But anyway, backstory: It was November 2009, only a year and a few months after 'Red' was released and Weezer were already coming up with a new album. Short album cycles tend to go one way or the other, and Raditude went the other about as far as it could go. The album was panned, most critics giving it either a negative or mixed review. But how bad really is 'Raditude'?

It starts off OK, with '(If you're wondering if I want you to) I want you to', a storytelling exercise that suffers from stale instrumentation but is otherwise nice enough, especially for this album. Then things start getting bad. Every flaw with 'I'm your Daddy' is immediately obvious from the title (Bear in mind Cuomo was 39 when this was released.) and the creepiness is continued onto track 3, 'The girl got hot' a song about a girl getting hot, complete with 'wo-oh'ing backing vocals for maximum marketability.

The obvious attempt at getting as much airplay as possible is I think what irks so many people about 'Raditude', and this comes to a peak in what quite a few Weezer fans consider as the all time worst Weezer song, 'Can't stop Partying'. It's very easy to see why, it's the definition of selling out with completely artificial instrumentation and typical lyrics about 'Going to da club, getting girls and drinking till ya can't see straight no more', all of which is topped with a - and this really happened - Lil Wayne guest verse. WHY IS LIL WAYNE ON A WEEZER SONG?! 

'Put me back Together' is a 'Make Believe'-esque faintly interesting slow song and 'Love is the answer' is a genuinely decent 'Within you Without you' cover Weezer-ed up a bit. 'Let it all Hang out' is a bro-friendly douchey song in the same vein as 'Can't stop Partying'. Then the album hits rock-bottom a second time with 'In the Mall', written by Patrick Wilson. With ingenious lyrics such as "First we smoke, then have a smoke". Once again loads of fans consider it Weezer's worst ever song and once again it's not hard to see why.

The album ends with the dull 'I don't want to let you go' (On Streaming websites it ends even worse with the strangely uncomfortable and sloppy 'Turn me Round'). So the album is terrible yes, and there's no way I could give it a positive review, but since Weezer seems to actually be good again, we can look back on Raditude as an intriguing and at some points hilariously bad vision of what Weezer could have been if they'd continued chasing pop success and piling on inappropriate co-writers (Only 2 songs on the album are written solo by Cuomo). Luckily, once you hit the bottom things can only get better - although that's little consolation to 'Raditude'

2/10

Weezer - Red Album review

Weezer's third self titled album, or 'The Red album' is the most inconsistent Weezer album of them all. Some of their all time best songs mix with some of their worst. Although after 'Make Believe' this is a pleasant surprise. Released in 2008, 'Red' is unique because of two notable aspects - having some songs with unconventional structures, which is very rare for Weezer, and because three of the songs are written and sung by Brian Bell, Patrick Wilson and Scott Shriner, e.g The other members of Weezer.

The album starts off very poorly, with 'Troublemaker' having many of Weezer's worst ever lyrics - "Marrying a beeyatch, having seven keeyads" is a particular highlight" - but the song seems to have the self-awareness that 'Make Believe' lacked, meaning that while it's bad it's not unforgivable. Then we get to the all time most insane Weezer song, 'The Greatest Man That ever Lived (Variations on a Shaker Hymn)'.

The song has about 10 different styles and sections which it switches through so quickly that it's kind of amazing. My particular favourite bit has got to be Cuomo's Queen-inspired falsetto. The lyrics on this are so cringingly that they circle round to being amazing ("I'm like a mage with a magic spell, you come like a dog when I ring your bell") and it's one of my all time favourite Weezer songs. 

From there we get 'Pork and Beans' which is a hellish fusion of 90s and 2000s Weezer and is one of their better big chart hits. 'Heart Songs' and 'Dreamin'' are both like good versions of the unbearable slower songs on 'Make Believe' and sandwiched between them is 'Everybody get dangerous' which sounds like Weezer trying to cover 'Can't stop' by the Red Hot Chili Peppers and getting it a bit off.

Then there's the triplet of songs written by the other members of Weezer and they're all decent. Brian Bell is first with 'Thought I knew'. The songs fine, but it doesn't really feel like a Weezer tune, with none of their trademarks being present. This is combatted a bit in 'Cold Dark World', which contains bad-but-in-a-charming-way spoken word verses from Scott Shriner, while the chorus and bridge are sung by Cuomo. Unfortunately the song is a tat, but it's still interesting due to Shriner's presence. Finally theres 'Automatic' by Patrick Wilson, which is a sweet song about his friends and family, and is my favourite of the three. It sounds recognisably Weezer and Patrick sounds as if he's really enjoying the chance to finally create his own song.

The closing track of 'Red' is easily the best song on the album, as well as one of best Weezer songs, maybe the best they released in the 2000s - 'The Angel and The One'. Now this is how you do a slow Weezer song! The song builds up and has multiple climaxes, each bigger than the last. It's one of the saddest Weezer songs in existence yet manages to also be incredibly uplifting. It also has incredible lyrics, which, as you've probably picked up, is quite a rarity in this period. By the time the vocals start chanting "Peace Shalom" you have chills down your spine.

Overall, 'The Red album' is more good than bad and other than several pretty bad songs and the weirdness of the band member songs, it's a decent album - which is more than can be said of what came next...

6/10

Weezer - Make Believe review

Let's get this out of the way first: This is a bad album. It's really, really, irredeemably bad and having to listen through it for this review was almost painful. I was trying to listen to it with an open mind and fresh ears but the first minute of 'Beverly hills' reminded me why I hadn't listened to 'Make Believe' in over a year.

And now some history. 'Make Believe' was released in 2005, just under 3 years since 'Maladroit' dropped. Fans were hopeful that the album would be incredible - Cuomo had been going through a period of depression, which is usually gold dust for songs. Plus the band were being produced by the legendary Rick Rubin! Then 'Beverly Hills' dropped.

I'll confess that the first time I ever heard any song by Weezer it was indeed 'Beverly Hills' and it was on a compilation about 5 years ago. I liked it as well, although my music taste was about as bad as it could get at the time. Since I've now listened to some legitimately good music and heard how brilliant Weezer can be, 'Beverly Hills' stands as one of their all-time worst songs. Maybe even their worst. It's ploddingly slow, Cuomo sounds like he's doing a bad impression of the stereotypical 'Cool celebrity' and the lyrics are complete garbage. The saddest thing abut the song though is it's success. It reached the top 10 on Billboard, Weezer's biggest hit by miles in terms of sales. Not only has this had some real impact on Weezer's view in the public eye (I know several people who have only heard this song out of Weezer's catalogue.) but it seemingly gave Cuomo the idea that the more braindead and conventional a song is the more popular it will be - which is true in fairness.

Track 2, 'Perfect situation' is easily the best song on 'Make Believe' and is still pretty crap. I've never been a fan of 'Wa-oh'ing acting as the main hook to a song Cough*KingsofLeon*Cough and that's exactly what the chorus to this tune is. Nonetheless, the piano at least makes the song interesting which is more than can be said of the rest of the album. 

'This is such a pity' starts off OK and then gets gradually worse until you just want to skip it. 'Hold me' is generic and boring and contains way too many extended syllables to not get annoying- even the guitar solo sounds slowed down. This is identical with a large portion of 'Peace' and across all 3 songs there isn't a single lyric you'll remember.

When 'We are all on drugs' comes through it feels refreshing - it's entertainingly terrible through each lyric being cringingly edgy and Cuomo sounding like he's taking it all entirely seriously. Plus, these days it just reminds me I could be listening to the million-times-better 'Do you wanna get high?' - but we'll get to that in due time.

'The Damage in your Heart' and 'Pardon me' are whimpering apologetic songs that seemed to be aimed at nobody and so affect nobody and are needless to say, sludgy, meandering pieces of garbage. 'My Best Friend' is decent compared to the rest of the album but the chorus has incredibly annoying instrumentation with slippy hi-hats and headache-inducing guitars.

'The Other Way' is the most inoffensive way of tackling a potentially interesting theme and 'Freak me out' has the best instrumental of the album but is unsurprisingly ruined by Cuomo whimpering through the lyrics and the lyrics being rubbish. 'Haunt you every day' ends the album with the slow blandness that the preceding songs were full of. 

If you like this album, good for you, but I cannot stand it. It's boring, the worst possible crime for a Weezer album. It has no song that I enjoy more than 4/10 and if you haven't listened to it yet I would say DON'T LISTEN TO IT. 

1/10

Weezer - Maladroit review

Maladroit is the dark horse of Weezer's catalogue. Recently the album has been filling up lists of 'Most underrated Weezer songs', but from what I see it's not so much underrated as it is ignored. When the album was released one day short of a year since 'Green' it got mixed-to-positive reviews that certainly did it no favours. It didn't get any amazing reviews or any harsh reviews, either of which would have at least made it stand out a bit. This is also the first Weezer album so far not to have any especially interesting story behind it - at least in comparison to the previous three albums.

The album was produced by Weezer, who constantly released demo MP3s onto their website and hoped that the final tracklist would be chosen by their fans from these demos. Alas, the band disagreed with many of the fans choices (With several exceptions) and so the album wasn't quite the love-letter to the fans it had been intended to be. But how good are the songs?

Well, 'Maladroit' is Weezer's strangest, most experimental album to date so it varies a bit. Song styles and sounds vary massively. This is evident in the two singles released from the collection, 'Dope Nose' and 'Keep Fishin''. Both are great songs but in very different ways - 'Dope Nose' has roaring guitars Whoa-oh-oh-oh-oh-ing and 'Hash-pipe' esque lyrics, whereas 'Keep Fishin'' is one of the best pure-pop tunes Weezer have come out with, as well as having a music video with muppets.

The whole album swings from depressed to euphoric every few songs. The heavy-metal riffs and cool-sounding lyrics of the first two songs along with the happiness of 'Keep Fishin'' suddenly slump down for the next 3 songs, 'Take Control', 'Death and destruction' and 'Slob', all 3 of which are darker than anything on 'Green' - although 'Death and destruction' is a little empty sounding and is the weakest song on the album.

Then we get another triplet of upbeat songs, 'Burnt jam', 'Space Rock' and 'Slave'. About half of 'Burnt Jam' is perfect and laid back with a sweet guitar riff which suits Cuomo's falsetto perfectly - it would easily be my favourite song on the album. Unfortunately the other half of the song is ruined by a distortion heavy, strangely dark guitar that makes 'Jam' one of the most frustrating Weezer songs (Not bad by any means - but irritating.). 'Space Rock' is too short to really acomplish anything but is a nice little breathing space for the middle of the album. 'Slave' is great, and is one of the most straightforward songs in the second half of 'Maladroit'. Weezer performed 'Slave' as one of only 5 songs from their 2016 Spotify sessions, which shows how it's endured further than most of the songs from the album.

The last final 4 songs are all very short in feel, and are all good-but-not-amazing. In the long run they are probably the easiest Weezer songs to forget about, which is a shame since none of them are bad, but as such there isn't much to say about them. The album ends with 'Island in the sun' tacked on as a bonus, which is a bit weird as it eclipses every other song in popularity - and it serves as a nice comparison to the rest of the album. 'Maladroit' is Weezer at their heaviest musically and shows them evolving into a different band, but also hanging onto their past and in the process creating a bunch of experiments where some stand up on their own and some don't. It's not hard to see why it's been so ignored but at the same time it's worth looking at if you're a fan.
7/10

Weezer - Green album review

In 2001 Weezer emerged out of a 5-year hiatus with a new album that showed them coming back from the brink of breaking up. By mid-2000 relations between the band members had dissolved, and previous bassist Matt Sharp left the group, to be replaced by Mikey Welsh. Luckily, in August of the same year Weezer was invited to play at a festival in Japan (Somewhere I'm sure Cuomo would be pretty excited to play at if  'Pinkerton' is anything to go by.) and the members started considering a new album - which eventually became 'Weezer', or 'The Green album'.

If it isn't obvious enough from the cover, Weezer had decided to return to their original 'Blue album' sound - at least compared to the heaviness of 'Pinkerton'. This disappointed many fans at the time of release, but in retrospect 'Green' is still a good album. It's full of very very straightforward pop tunes which are for the most part cute and fun. Heck, the albums only half an hour, mainly because every song is very short.

'My name and Jonas' and 'Tired of Sex' are indicative of the following album's sound and the same can be said of 'Don't let go', Track 1 of 'Green'. It's really catchy, has upbeat drumming, simple melody, Cuomo singing mainly in his mid-range, root note picking bass and warbling guitar. This is pretty much the same as 'Photograph', 'Knock down drag-out', 'Simple pages', ''Glorious day' and my favourite out of the bunch 'Smile'.

The more interesting songs on the disc are those that do something a bit different. 'Hash pipe' has edgy guitar work, falsetto verses and far more interesting lyrics than most of the album. This can also be largely said of 'Crab', the coolest sounding tune here. The lyrics of most of the songs are the biggest problem I have with 'Green', with most of them being vague and quite generic (If you want it you can have it/ But you've gotta learn to reach out there and grab it.), as if 'Holiday' was taken as inspiration for a whole album. The song structures are also very repetitive for the most part, with verse, Chorus, verse, Chorus, Guitar solo, Chorus repeated for nearly every song.

To sum up 'Green', it's a lot like biggest hit 'Island in the sun' - It's nice, catchy, sounds like Weezer and most people generally like it, but it's not especially amazing and it's definitely nowhere near the album it was trying to emulate.
7/10

Weezer - Pinkerton retrospective review

Continuing my review of Weezer's discography, we come across the musical storm cloud that is 'Pinkerton'. Released in 1996, it was written following Cuomo's scrapping of Weezer's planned follow up to the mega-successful 'Blue album'. Instead of the expected 'Songs from the Black Hole' project, the public was instead greeted with an angsty, depressed and haunting album which precisely nobody had expected - or wanted, it seems. The album was met with immediate disdain from critics and audiences alike, with 'Rolling stone' readers voting it as the third worst album of the year. Nowadays it's seen by many as one of the best albums of the 90s (It has a perfect 100 on metacritic, which may be dubious but does say something about how opinion has changed.), and possibly even better than the 'Blue album'.

As a Weezer fan going into 'Pinkerton' for the first time you may have the same reaction as the '96 audience did; I certainly did. The opening track 'Tired of Sex' has heavily distorted, disturbing guitars and lyrics which are alternatively whimpered and screamed and are basically about Cuomo's sexual experiences with fans. Funnily enough, this - along with second track 'Getchoo' - are by far the heaviest sounding on the album as well as the heaviest Weezer have ever been. It's easy to imagine how many disillusioned fans turned the album off after track 2, amazed at how their favourite power-pop, fun guitar group had suddenly nose-dived into a creepy, depressing band.

The lyrics are creepy on 'Pinkerton', no doubt about it, but this only adds to the piece in my eyes. The songs were written by Cuomo about his experiences at Harvard University across 1995 and '96 where he was older than most students and had a large leg brace due to surgery he had undergone, making him a social outcast. The perverted lyrics of a song like 'Across the sea' therefore come across as more depressing than creepy, because Cuomo knows that they're terrible but can't help himself due to how alone he is.

The first half of the album is for the most part darker than the second, with 'No other one' tackling a mediocre girlfriend and 'Why bother' showing off Cuomo's lack of will to even try and get into a relationship due to ho much he knows it's gonna kill him in the end, before 'Across the sea' tackles loneliness in the bluntest possible way. When Cuomo wails 'Why are you so far away from me?' it feels almost too real to listen to.

The second half lightens up a bit, with 'The good life' and 'El Scorcho' being the most upbeat songs on the record - that's not to say they don't have their creepy lyrics ("God-damn you half Japanese girls!") - and 'Falling for you' appears to actually have a happy ending. The two exceptions to this are 'Pink triangle', a tune about falling for a lesbian that's the musical equivalent of a tut, and the closing track 'Butterfly' which manages to be the saddest Weezer song to this day despite also being one of the softest. By comparing himself to the character of Pinkerton from the play Madame Butterfly Cuomo creates an honest and heartbreaking summary of the previous 34 minutes.

I realise that I've not mentioned the rest of the band for any part of this review, because it's such a personal album, but they all do great jobs with complex work from Brian Bell on guitar, Matt sharp on bass and Patrick Wilson on drums.

Nonetheless, what makes this album so important are the lyrical barriers it broke and that it gives us an unbelievably detailed look into the mind of a man on the brink of collapse and does it with catchy melodies and solid riffs. Maybe it deserves that 100 after all.
10/10

Weezer - Blue album retrospective review

1994 was arguably the best year for alt-rock ever. We got Green Day releasing 'Dookie', Oasis releasing 'Definitely maybe', Nine inch nails releasing 'The downward spiral and Blur releasing 'Parklife' amongst many others. But out of everything released in '94, my favourite has always been Weezer's self-titled debut album commonly known as the blue album because - Well just look at it.

The album was a massive success, going triple-platinum in the US and landing on most 'best album of the '90s lists since it's May 10th release, and it's not very hard to see why. The first 20 seconds of 'My name is Jonas' are so good that most albums would be accused of front loading. It seems insane that a song about something as boring as attempting to claim compensation after an accident could sound so brilliantly triumphant, but 'Jonas' carries it off with style.

The lyrics on the album also help it stand out amongst the rest of it's competition, with songs about surfing, sweaters and looking the same as Buddy Holly sit beside alcohol addiction, heartbreak and depressed masturbation. The latter is 'Only in dreams', the 8 minute behemoth that is not only still the longest Weezer song but ends with almost 4 minutes of a guitar solo that emulates the song topic pretty accurately.

Speaking of solos, this album is full of them and they're all great! Even a crushingly angry song like 'Say it aint so' (My personal favourite Weezer track to this day) has a perfect solo that somehow manages to sound really cool and livid at the same time. Buddy Holly contains one of my all time favourite moments in any song with just three seconds of squealing guitar just before the final chorus.

What I think makes Rivers Cuomo (Lead singer and guitarist of Weezer) is so interesting is his ability to write very personal songs and yet make them just vague enough so that anybody can relate to them (Although Pinkerton is basically the opposite of this and is also incredible so I dunno). Examples of this are the aforementioned 'Say it aint so' and 'Only in dreams' along with 'The World has turned and left me here' and 'No one else', but is best demonstrated by the fan-favourite 'In the garage'. A song about being a teen alone in your bedroom/garage was by no means a rarity in the 90s, but it had never been this hopeful. Few artists would present sitting by yourself, geeking out over KISS and nightcrawler while singing to yourself as anything other than a bit weird or desperate - But not Cuomo, who instead crafts another awesome ode to being happy in your own company.

The album isn't completely flawless - 'Holiday' isn't quite up to the standard of the other songs although it's still better than almost everything they released during the 2000s, if only due to nonsensical lyrics and a weird breakdown near the end that doesn't really add anything.

That said, the appeal of this album is far beyond just the music, as it's evidently inspired many other great albums and artists - From early 2000s bands like Fountains of Wayne to up and coming artists like Car seat headrest. Nick Jonas also cites it as an inspiration for his band DNCE but lets try and ignore that. Most of Weezer's airplay still comes from the blue album singles and it's still their best selling album (Even if Pinkerton has arguably overtaken it in critical praise.). Since Weezer seem to be releasing good music again with 'Everything will be alright' and 'The white album', I think it's the perfect time to revisit this album or even to listen to it for the first time if you haven't yet, because it's easily one of the best albums of the 90s.
10/10

The Weeknd ft. Daft Punk - Starboy review

In case you haven't been paying attention to pop music in 2016 - something which I wouldn't blame you for - It hasn't been good. Bland, half-formed songs have been clogging up the radio and the charts pretty much all year. This is in contrast to the incredible year for pop that was 2015: There was a huge variety of genuinely great rap, pop, electronic dance music and R&B from newcomers and established artists alike. One of the most promising newcomers (at least to this level of success.) was an alternative R&B artist who became absolutely massive off the back of his 3 massive hits, 'Earned it', 'Can't feel my face' and 'The Hills', the latter two reaching number 1 in the US and number 3 over here in the UK - Abel Makkonen Tesfaye AKA The Weeknd.

Therefore, the pressure on Tesfaye for his next album is almost unimaginably big. His 2015 effort 'Beauty behind the madness' was met with good-but-not-amazing reception, but the combination of having hugely loved singles and the sales of over 2 million in the US alone meant that a lot was riding on how good this new song 'Starboy' was. Luckily for everybody, it's very good.




It begins with some sharp, chugging beats courtesy of Daft Punk that alone raise the the song above many mediocre, sleepy rhythms (Think pretty much anything from 'Views') from the top 10 this year. These combine with the throbbing bass and the sparse piano keys to set the edgy, dark atmosphere we've come to expect from The Weeknd. Tesfaye's voice is a great match for his lyrics, which are even then probably the weakest part of the song as a whole - Basically the Weeknd boasting about how much of everything he has since he hit it big - and even then they're still miles more interesting than most of this years crap, mainly because he's blaming the public for putting in this position and with aforementioned 2 million sales, he kinda has a point.

The chorus is especially great, with daft punk using their trademark robot voices for some 'Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha' backing vocals as Tesfaye's voice breaks into one of the best falsettos on the radio. Equally amazing is the video which shows the Weekend killing himself before revealing that he has *gasp* changed his notorious hairstyle into something sharper and more cohesive - just like his music - before he smashes up all of his awards and trophies from the 'old' Weeknd. If you haven't heard the song yet (You probably have, it's currently number 3 in the UK and number 2 in the US) I've linked the video above, so please check it out. It might just be your favourite hit of the year.
9/10