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Weezer (2008 album)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Weezer, also known as The Red Album, is the sixth studio album by American rock band Weezer, released on June 3, 2008. Rick Rubin and Jacknife Lee both helped to produce the album. Unlike past Weezer records that featured Rivers Cuomo as the main songwriter and vocalist, other band members contributed to songwriting and lead vocals. The first eight tracks of the album leaked in early May. The full album leaked onto the music site thebillbored.com May 26.
Background
After the platinum success of their fifth album Make Believe, the band once again was put on hiatus. Frontman Rivers Cuomo returned to Harvard University to complete his education. He ended up graduating Phi Beta Kappa. Cuomo also married Kyoko Ito on June 18, 2006, a woman he had known since March 1997. He proposed to her in Tokyo shortly before Christmas of 2005. The wedding was held at a secluded beach on Paradise Cove in Malibu and was attended by over a hundred people, including six of the seven members who played in Weezer (Mikey Welsh being the only no show) as well as notables Justin Fisher, Kevin Ridel and Rick Rubin.
Meanwhile, members Patrick Wilson and Brian Bell appeared in the 2006 film Factory Girl playing John Cale and Lou Reed respectively and contributing a cover of the Velvet Underground song "Heroin" for the film. Also during this time, Bell formed a new side-band called The Relationship while Wilson started work on material for the next Special Goodness album. He also had a second child, Ian Patrick Wilson, with his wife in early 2008.
The band announced in June 2007 that recording sessions for the album would begin in July. In December of 2007, Cuomo released Alone: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo, which featured home demos that Cuomo has recorded from 1992-2007. It was also during this time that a mysterious website called albumsix.com started to crop up. The website gave false information about the album such as the album title would be "Tout Ensemble" and a fake release date. The website fooled several news outlets such as Pitchfork Media and Rolling Stone. The website was later revealed to be a hoax by some fans with band historian/webmaster Karl Koch stating on Weezer's official website:
"Please note that Weezer and Geffen Records have no affiliation with www.albumsix.com. The new Weezer record is not called Tout Ensemble and there is no official release date yet for the album. Remember, when it's on Weezer.com, it's for sure. (Though I will say, 'well played', to the authors of that site.)"
Recording process
At the beginning of the album's creation each Weezer member asked themselves what they wanted to get out of the album. With that in mind, they set out to record. Recording was done in three sessions. Half of the album was recorded during the Spring of 2007 with Rick Rubin overseeing production. The second session, started in July and finished on October 18, was produced by Weezer themselves at Mali. The third, and final session of recording was done at the request of Geffen records, who claimed that there was not enough commercial material on the album. This session was produced by Jacknife Lee and completed in March 2008. In the first podcast released on www.riverspodcast.com, Rivers mentioned playing drums on two songs on the album. In a recent interview with Pitchfork Media, Cuomo stated the album will contain "longer songs, non-traditional song forms, different people writing and singing, instrument switching, TR-808s, synths, Southern rap, and baroque counterpoint."
Writing and composition
"Pork and Beans" is the first single to be released from the album. "Troublemaker" was originally considered to be the album's first single but later was switched with "Pork and Beans." It was written by Cuomo as a reaction to a meeting with Geffen where the band was told it needed to record more-commercial material. Jacknife Lee produced the track with the band in early 2008 during the third and final session for the record.
"The Greatest Man That Ever Lived (Variations on a Shaker Hymn)" is a track that includes piano, police sirens, and Cuomo singing in falsetto. "Miss Sweeney"' was named by Cuomo, along with "The Greatest Man That Ever Lived," as a track which features rapped vocals. Bass player Scott Shriner was particularly proud of the song saying, "The song 'The Greatest Man That Ever Lived' is a masterpiece that includes ten different styles of music based around a common theme. It's awesome. That word gets abused a lot, like 'Wow, these pancakes are awesome,' but 'Greatest Man' is . . . awesome!"
"Heart Songs" is about all the artists and records that have influenced Cuomo from Gordon Lightfoot's The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald when he was 5 years old to Nirvana's Nevermind.
"Everybody Get Dangerous" is featured briefly in the film 21. The song was not included on the official soundtrack release.
"Dreamin'" was formerly known as "Daydreamer" and was described in the liner notes to Alone: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo as an "epic, 6-minute, symphonic type of art song." "This is the Way" was written as a more straightforward counterpart, and was originally selected by the band to be recorded for the Weezer album, but Cuomo persuaded the others to go with "Dreamin'" instead.
"Thought I Knew" was also the name of a song by Brian Bell's band The Relationship, and is a reworking and re-recording of the track with Weezer sung as a lead vocal by Brian.
"Cold Dark World" is a song that was written by Rivers Cuomo and Scott Shriner and features Scott on lead vocals.
"Automatic" was remixed by LA Riots for the upcoming video game Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. This track features Pat Wilson on lead vocals, as heard in this YouTube video.
"The Angel and the One" is the album closer. Some members of the band have claimed that this is their favorite track, including Pat Wilson.
"Pig" leaked as a demo in early 2007, this song details the life of a pig including playing in the mud as a piglet, falling in love, getting married, raising children and eventually being slaughtered. It appears on the deluxe edition of the Weezer album.
"King" is the last song on the deluxe edition of the Weezer album and is sung by Scott Shriner.
Each of Weezer's self-titled albums have been released seven years apart from each other.
Artwork
The album's cover debuted on Spinner.com on April 21, 2008. It features the band members Brian Bell, Patrick Wilson, Rivers Cuomo and Scott Shriner in various outfits standing left to right in front of a red backdrop, and is in a manner similar to their debut and 2001 album. The cover was photographed by Sean Murphy. Pitchfork Media writer Amy Phillips compared the cover to the Village People saying, "Meet the new Village People: The Bartender, the Professor, the Cowboy, and the Biker." The cover received mixed reactions from fans wondering if the cover was a hoax. The cover was reconfirmed by the band's publicist Jim Merlis, "Yes, that's absolutely the cover. It's what they chose. They looked at a bunch of mockups, and that's the one they decided to go with. It's not a joke."
From a Buzznet.com interview with Scott Shriner: "The cover for The Red Album was kind of ... a happy accident," Shriner said. "We had a whole 'nother set of photographs that we wanted to be [on] the cover and nothing that we were looking at ever matched up to what we felt that album sounded like and represents for us. Our art director got that photo [the official album cover], which originally was a fun photo. 'OK, everybody, go as your alter ego, and we'll take a kooky picture,' [he said.] He [the art director] put the red background behind that, and that's what felt like the strongest image that matched how we feel the album sounds."
Like the album cover, the album itself was very much a group effort. While many tend to assume that most Weezer material was scribed by Cuomo, Shriner insists that, "We all wrote music on the record. [Drummer] Pat [Wilson] and [guitarist] Brian [Bell] wrote songs, and we all sing lead vocals on songs and sing leads on different verses and choruses."
Release and reviews
On April 1, 2008, Rolling Stone reported that the album would once again be self-titled and become known as "The Red Album", with the first single being titled "Pork and Beans". Weezer later announced that the release date had been moved up to June 3, 2008, from June 24, 2008. On May 7, 2008, the first 8 tracks from the album were leaked to the internet, leading to mixed responses from Weezer message boards and fan blogs. On May 26, 2008, the final two tracks from the album were leaked along with bonus cover "The Weight" . On May 31, 2008, the 4 bonus tracks from the US Deluxe Edition were leaked.
The album received positive reviews, with a Metacritic score of 61%. The Onion AV Club wrote that the "blame for Weezer can't all be laid on Cuomo "his bandmates' songwriting contributions (particularly Brian Bell's Uncle Kracker stab 'Thought I Knew') are just as unforgivably soulless." Tiny Mix Tapes gave the album only one star of a possible five, saying, "The only difference between the Weezer who shat out Make Believe and the Weezer of today is that the band isn't so obviously gunning for the Warped Tour crowd anymore, but instead attempting to lure back the attentions of an older crowd, maybe those who vaguely remember hearing 'Buddy Holly' on the radio or aging rockers who also shun Rogaine... Despite what they'd like us to think, The Red Album sounds like every one of Weezer's misfires since The Green Album. The LA Times was more positive, saying that the album "is a rush, starting with a sustained, four-song soliloquy on pop music's allure."
Track listing
All songs were written by Rivers Cuomo, except where noted.
"Troublemaker" - 2:44
"The Greatest Man That Ever Lived (Variations on a Shaker Hymn)"- 5:52
"Pork and Beans" - 3:09
"Heart Songs" - 4:06
"Everybody Get Dangerous" - 4:03
"Dreamin'" - 5:12
"Thought I Knew" (Bell) - 3:01
"Cold Dark World" (Cuomo, Shriner) - 3:51
"Automatic" (Wilson) - 3:07
"The Angel and the One" - 6:46
Bonus Tracks
US Deluxe Edition Bonus Tracks
"Miss Sweeney" (Cuomo, Sarah C. Kim) - 4:02
"Pig" - 4:02
"The Spider" - 4:43
"King" - 5:11[36]
iTunes Bonus Tracks
"It's Easy" (Bell) - 3:10
"I Can Love" - 3:49
UK Bonus Tracks
"The Weight" (The Band Cover)
"Life's What You Make It" (Talk Talk Cover)
A third unconfirmed track is also set to be released on the UK version of the album.
Japan Bonus Tracks
"The Weight" (The Band Cover)
"Life's What You Make It" (Talk Talk Cover)
"Meri Kuri" (BoA Cover)
Australia Bonus Tracks
"The Weight" (The Band Cover)
Personnel
Weezer
Brian Bell - guitar, vocals
Rivers Cuomo - guitar, vocals, drums
Scott Shriner - bass, vocals, Korg R3 synthesizer
Patrick Wilson - drums, vocals, guitar
Production
Rick Rubin - producer (in conjunction with Weezer) for tracks 2, 4-6 & 10
Weezer - producer for tracks 7-9
Jacknife Lee - producer for tracks 1 & 3
Rich Costey - mixer
Andrew Scheps - engineer
Eric J - engineer