Listened: Saturday June 30
I remember very clearly when The Green Album came out – I was an unemployed new college grad living at home with my parents again. I had spent my entire college career with no new Weezer, since Pinkerton had come out in 1996 and Green came out in 2001. Given the very different masterpieces which are their first two albums, it was really exciting to ponder what new Weezer would sound like.
The answer – a lot like Blue, but with even more energy. It feels like the lyrics are a lot more relaxed than Blue and Pinkerton too. There’s not so much insecurity and angst. It’s not so much better as different.
As I noted in the review for Maladroit, when Green came out I realized that I was perhaps past the age limit and below the coolness factor to be a Weezer fan anymore. I went to my first Weezer show in Oakland on September 12, 2001. Things were already a bit aggro because September 11th had just happened, and it should have been a nice distraction to go to a show for a band I liked, but instead I found myself surrounded by high school cool kids. I was confused – where were all the 22 year old nerds like myself? It didn’t help that there were 2 openers, one of which Weezer fans clearly weren’t interested in seeing (Cold, who are kind of a gothy metal band; the lineup didn’t make sense then and it still doesn’t make sense now) since during their set more attention was paid to booing, hecking, and pushing the already packed crowd all over the place.
It wasn’t a fun time, and it affected my reception of their next album, Maladroit. As I noted in that review, now that a lot of time has passed, I can acknowledge that album’s decentness, but at the time, it was time to move on to something else.
Emily's Albums A to Z 