A friend of mine once described Weezer's career as such: "Imagine you're in a plane, and you keep flying higher and higher, and everything's great. Then, for no discernable reason, you jump out the cargo hold doors. You deploy a parachute, but then, for fun, you cut the strings and go into a freefall. Then you land face-first on a flagpole and are blown to bits."
Consider "Raditude" the twitching remains of that skydiver. Once the darlings of the alternative rock scene, honestly nerdy not because it was funny but because that's who they were, Weezer has devolved into something resembling a Frankenstein's monster of dishonesty. The stitching on the assembled body parts of its compositions is plainly visible, and the band grunts as it stumbles through the world, ruining everything it touches.
The very concepts of every song on "Raditude" are stupid and contrived. Just examine the song titles: "I'm Your Daddy," "The Girl Got Hot," "Can't Stop Partying," "I Don't Want To Let You Go." I don't know what turns in the road led Weezer to become Simple Plan, but they need to make a u-turn, and do so quickly.
The grotesquery begins with the rollicking and catchy yett wholly soulless "(If You're Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To," the first in a collection of songs that are all radio-ready but not at all cohesive. From there, it is stop after stop in a parade of disappointment and confusion.
Rivers Cuomo took time off from the band a few years back to complete an English degree at Harvard, which is interesting, considering his lyrics are akin to a thirteen-year-old boy who's never read a poem in his life. "Tonight I'm leaving all my worries and my problems in my house/I'm going out with my homies and we're gonna let it all hang out," he sings on "Let It All Hang Out."
The songwriting is so derivative it's as though these songs weren't even written by the same band that made such classics as "Say It Ain't So" and "Buddy Holly." In fact, they weren't, at least not totally. Weezer decided to try a new tact with "Raditude," sharing songwriting duties with such artists as The All-American Rejects, Jermaine Dupree, and their producer, who has previously written hits for Kelly Clarkson and Rihanna.
With such a crack team of critically worthless musicians, it's not surprising that Weezer has met a level of dreadfulness so potent you can almost smell it through the speakers. To say that they are experimenting with different sounds isn't even a compliment in this case; "Can't Stop Partying," among the worst songs I have ever heard, features a hip-hop style (and bizarre rap interlude from none other than the aforementioned Dupree) that will likely make it the party jam of the tone-deaf in 2009.
It was suggested by some that Weezer's last album, referred to by most as "The Red Album" because of the color of its cover, was really an elaborate prank on the band's fans and record label. If that's true, and "Raditude," a title suggested by actor Rainn Wilson (presumably as a joke), is a continuation of that idea, then consider Weezer Andy Kaufman-level prank geniuses, because every second of this release seems to have taken a considerable effort to polish and shine to the point of narcissism, on a level that no prank album should ever be.
But if it is, as I suspect, just a band that's sold its soul to the business of music without the sense of integrity or positivity that built years of goodwill and a large cult following, then the results are nothing to be lauded, or even listened to.
Weezer has made its third masterpiece of awful, a monument to consumerism, idiocy and vapid self-indulgence. Let's hope the band collects the check and goes home. One more album like "Raditude" and the music industry might finally collapse upon itself in shame.
Christian Hagen is a Reporter staff writer
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