Weezer

self-titled (a.k.a. “The Green Album”) (Geffen)

It was fitting that Weezer’s first album appeared in the summer of ’94, not long after Kurt Cobain’s death. The spark of the grunge phenomenon had been snuffed, and though new melodic trespasses were already appearing (Counting Crows, Hootie), everyone seemed ready to shake off the angst-ridden, moaning sounds of the few years previous.

From sunny California, Weezer embodied a newer, fresher musical outlook. Actual vocal harmonies bounded from their catchy, light songs; tasteful guitar leads highlighted tunes that cleverly referenced the X-Men, KISS, surfing, and Dungeons and Dragons; and their scruffy but clean-cut looks were welcome after all the flannel and long hair. Other smart melodic indie-pop appeared that same season—Sebadoh’s Bakesale, Liz Phair’s Whip-smart—but it was Weezer’s giant choruses that won the day. Pleasant and fizzy, this new breed of pop music could’ve been called “California sound”—the Bay Area’s Green Day was climbing up the charts too.

After Weezer’s video for “Buddy Holly” cracked MTV, a host of other catchy rock ’n’ roll bands—Superdrag, Nada Surf, the Fountains of Wayne—hit the airwaves. Only a couple years later, though, it seemed that the music’s day in the sun was already over. Weezer’s second album, the self-produced Pinkerton, failed commercially, and though Superdrag, Nada Surf, and the Fountains had all found modest success, none was able to keep the short-lived tide of popularity from rolling out.

Sometime after that, though, thousands of kids started discovering Pinkerton and realized that its unpolished, more personal sound was what they’d always wanted Weezer to sound like. The album was dirtier, both lyrically and musically, and arguably catchier too. Unlike the band’s Ric Ocasek-produced, eponymously titled debut (also known as The Blue Album), Pinkerton wasn’t souped up for radio and MTV hitdom. Weezer might’ve disappeared from public view, but the kids who found Pinkerton all started bands. It’s not a stretch to say that the fad of emo-rock—catchy, personal, often sappy, punk-influenced rock—pledges allegiance to Weezer’s Pinkerton. We hear traces of Weezer in the Promise Ring, the Get Up Kids (who recently opened for Weezer), Kleenex Girl Wonder, Braid (now Hey Mercedes!), and Barcelona.

But while all these newer bands were proliferating, things were looking grim for Weezer. Bassist Matt Sharp left to pursue his own project, The Rentals. Little was heard from Weezer until they recruited new bassist Mikey Welch, formerly of The Juliana Hatfield Three, and the group began playing sporadic live dates. The band returned to the studio last December, and the result is another self-titled collection (this one dubbed The Green Album). The disc starts off with “Don’t Let Go,” a song that sounds remarkably similar to Superdrag’s “Phaser.” Coincidence, or a nod to their rock-pop brothers-in-arms? Either way, it’s a rousing opener that chugs through its power chords. After this, Weezer are back on familiar ground: The second track, “Photograph,” is filled with background “ooh-ooh”s and “oh baby”s. It’s a chipper nod to California music of all stripes, from the Beach Boys to Weezer’s beloved Van Halen.

The production, once again by Ric Ocasek, isn’t as loose as on Pinkerton; the guitars are edgy but commercial-sounding. The album’s hardest track, “Hash Pipe,” is the first single. It’s an odd choice not only because MTV refuses to broadcast the words “hash pipe” together—the VJs refer to the song as “Half Pipe,” and the word “hash” is muted throughout the video—but also because it’s a little misleading to listeners expecting an album full of charging guitar riffs (which pop up only on a few tunes). Then again, this reflects the typical way that rock-pop bands approach releasing singles: Pick the song that sounds the least like the rest of the record.

Should The Green Album capture enough attention to merit further single releases, the choices will obviously be “Island in the Sun” and “Knock-down Drag-out.” (And I don’t say this just because the sticker on the record said so.) “Island” is an easygoing, acoustic-guitar-led tune; the sound is undeniably infectious and lighter than anything Weezer have previously released. It’s one of those songs where everything sounds familiar in a good way—not clichéd, but not unknown either. It’s the perfect summer tune, easy to sing and sway along to. “Knock-down Drag-out” rocks along faster than “Hash Pipe,” but more tunefully. The melodic hook is in the verse instead of the chorus, with the refrains in between serving only to build tension—a device that keeps the song pounding along steadily. At only two minutes long, though, it may prove too brief to grab radio’s attention.

If there’s a complaint to be lodged against The Green Album, it’s that it’s hardly meaty enough to satiate fans after Weezer’s five-year hiatus. As the follow-up to Pinkerton, it feels lightweight and insubstantial. Clocking in at 10 tracks and 28 minutes, it certainly isn’t enough to keep us going for another five years. But the record isn’t exactly a letdown either. It’s structured as a perfect pop album should be—brief, breezy, and catchy. As with all of Weezer’s records, it begs the listener to play armchair A&R guy: “What if this were the next single?”

Fans of Pinkerton might be disappointed, but they should cut the band some slack. The reasons Pinkerton has been so ravenously devoured—it’s complex, emotional, catchy without being lowbrow—are the reasons Weezer want to leave it behind. In the time surrounding Pinkerton’s release, the band members suffered the deaths of friends, clinical depression, major surgery, the departure of a founding member, and commercial failure. Call the new record a “sellout” if you want, but it’s easy to see why Weezer don’t want to revisit their darker, dirtier side.

Despite their five-year absence, Weezer have not returned with godhead, but simply a good pop record. It was the best they could do—which is a lot better than most bands can do. After all, over the course of three albums and a handful of B-sides, Weezer have compiled more perfect pop moments than any band could hope for.

Pipe dreams

Give the young Scots in Travis their due for industriousness. Scarcely a year after breaking through in the States with their sweeping (if slightly overrated) second album, The Man Who, the Big Music quartet is back with The Invisible Band (Epic), which carries on cheerily the band’s mission of translating the arty pretensions of countrymen Radiohead into winning pop music. The Invisible Band even has a not-so-invisible theme, and it has to do with telling their fans to look at themselves, realize their inner strength, do whatever they put their minds to...all that hoo-hah. It’s a self-help record.

And damn if it isn’t endearing. First single (and album opener) “Sing” may seem at first cloying, with its “All the love that you bring / Won’t mean a thing / Unless you sing” chorus and the effort that lead singer Fran Healy puts into repeating the title word over and over. But the cozy bed of strings and banjo warms up a melody that gets less grating and more affecting with each spin. The sing-along “Flowers in the Window” pounds away at its central hook until listeners give in and start tapping their toes. On the ebullient “Follow the Light,” Healy’s developing vocal technique—less reliant on the adolescent whine of Travis’ early work—really sells the simple, “don’t be afraid” message of the lyric. Even the shadowy “Last Train” pulls back from the murderous rage of its opening lyrics to become a “we’ve all had our dark moments, don’t let it get you down” message song.

Unlike The Man Who, which was spotty on the whole and particularly dry over its second half, Travis’ new record maintains its pleasurability for all 11 tracks and even improves toward the end (perhaps because it takes a few songs to get used to the pervasive sunny-day atmosphere). The ringing guitars and jangling guitars crash against each other with an awesome splash, as Healy tells us that everything will be all right if we just love each other. For the 45 minutes of The Invisible Band, that seems entirely plausible.

—Noel Murray

Closer to the Mark

Immediately after the dissolution of American Music Club, the band’s mastermind Mark Eitzel threw himself into a series of collaborative solo projects that found him pushing toward places that he couldn’t quite reach. Neither Mark Isham, nor Peter Buck, nor the rhythm section of Sonic Youth could provide the consistent spark of inspiration that Eitzel received from the eclectic American Music Club ensemble, and so Eitzel’s first three solo records contained a few outstanding songs and far too much depressing filler.

Eitzel relies mainly on himself for his latest, The Invisible Man (Matador), with a rotating set of sidemen that features old friends and bandmates (including Vudi, the erstwhile AMC guitarist, on three tracks); he’s also steered his songwriting away from the punchy ditties that he had been generating and back toward the witty, free-form confessionals of his heyday. The benefits are evident on the album’s very first track, “The Boy With the Hammer in the Paper Bag,” which opens with the resounding piano and acoustic guitar that Eitzel often employs, and then gradually gathers momentum while rapid synthesized percussion converts a dirge into a spirited dance number. The artist’s voice has rarely been more nuanced and moving, as he croons and gasps his way through a sad and funny character study of an attention-seeking youngster. It’s just about the most wonderful six minutes of pop music to be released this year.

The rest of The Invisible Man never quite reascends to the heights of “The Boy With the Hammer,” but Eitzel’s emphasis on rushing rhythm tracks and his renewed commitment to his powerful vocal instrument provide at least a baseline level of listenability to the 12 remaining songs. And there are other standouts as well—the skittering, plaintively joyful “Can You See?”; the yearning, morning-after rumination “Christian Science Reading Room”; the farewell-to-poses ballad “Shine”; and the goofy romantic pledge “Seeing Eye Dog”—that show Eitzel back in control of his art, even as his emotions continue to veer evocatively where they may.

—Noel Murray

Revealing tendencies

1998’s Up—R.E.M.’s first album without original drummer Bill Berry—was frail, but often captivating in its frailty. It was the sound of a band trying to regain its strength in the wake of a resolve-testing loss and its first flop album, 1996’s bloated New Adventures in Hi-Fi. The band’s new record, Reveal (Virgin), continues to explore the new dynamic that was created on Up. There are still electronic percussion tracks, washes of synths, and nods in the direction of millennial trance music; but R.E.M. have learned more about how to deploy the new techniques, and rather than merely trying to get in sync with modern European pop styles, the trio are actively molding technology to fit their own style of moody rock.

So the bubbling synthesizers that emerge periodically in the winsome “All the Way to Reno” take the place of guitarist Peter Buck’s previously standard filigrees of half-strummed, half-picked jangle, while Buck alternates between deep twang and barely recognizable waves of distortion. Meanwhile, Michael Stipe delivers an unaffected, restrained vocal performance that keeps the song’s lightness and airiness intact while still sounding a note of unease. It’s the same sort of precisely pitched mood-setting at which R.E.M. have excelled since they were freshly scrubbed college rockers out of Athens, Ga.

What they don’t do anymore is offer direct compositions with blockbuster hooks; the closest the new album comes to a radio-ready cut is the first single, “Imitation of Life,” and even that sounds a little thin and obvious when it pops up on VH1 (though it’s quite delightful in the context of the record as a whole). Instead, they go for unusual textures, and when they layer electronic buzz over slide guitar over ’70s-style piano balladry on “Beat a Drum,” the intelligence and care behind the combination make the less enchanting tracks on the overlong record easier to forget. The discoveries are worth the slog.

Understand, this is no U2-like resurrection. Reveal is nowhere near as strong as All That You Can’t Leave Behind, and the preponderance of Beach Boys-style orchestration and tricky melodies won’t please those who have been prepared for the past 10 years to finally shrug off R.E.M. But it’s an improvement over the tenuousness of Up, and it makes a clear statement that 21st-century R.E.M. aren’t going to acquiesce and go back to the past. They may never go platinum again, but the sounds they’re making now provide their own metallic gleam.

—Noel Murray

Orchestrated return

Having survived the shifting musical trends of the past two decades, more and more ’70s rock bands are returning to the sounds that first made them famous, leaving behind necessary flirtations with the Top 40 as they realize that it’s more rewarding to stay true to their art and to their fan base. The latest reinvention through reimmersion has been undergone by the Electric Light Orchestra, who’ve mostly shrugged off the pre-fab twang-and-big-beat style that bandleader Jeff Lynne made de rigeur back in the late ’80s. On Zoom (Epic), E.L.O. are backing each letter of their acronym, especially the “O.” Lynne restores the swirling strings, dance-floor-tested rhythms, and vibrating electric guitar that helped E.L.O. bridge the gap between prog-rock and disco.

The record’s charms are too copious to enumerate. The bits of banjo beneath the heavy-footed album opener “Alright” are a good start, followed by the slow-dance-circa-1978 “Moment in Paradise,” with its echoing piano carrying a countermelody beneath the chorus. The dewy-eyed, Beatles-esque drift of “Just for Love” is as cuddly as can be, while “Stranger on a Quiet Street” builds deliberately to a chorus as exultant and haunting as the band has ever produced. “Melting in the Sun” is closest to Lynne’s Traveling Wilburys era, but it has a relaxed performance (and a throwback string section) that keeps it in the spirit of Zoom; meanwhile “State of Mind” shifts from clap-and-stomp boogie to swaying anthem to screaming rocker, combing every era of E.L.O. in three delirious minutes.

What brought all this on? Maybe it’s the new breed of alternative power-pop bands that have paid homage to E.L.O. and thereby reminded Lynne of his place in the pantheon—after years of being a guilty pleasure, people are finally ready to admit how impactive and fun old E.L.O. songs could be. Or maybe it’s just what was mentioned above, that the liberation from having to deliver hits and keep pace with the mainstream has allowed Lynne to play music that he really loves. It’s certainly lovable music.

—Noel Murray

Platters that matter

Recent releases of note:

Artful Dodger, It’s All About the Stragglers (London/Sire) This is the second shot from across the Atlantic of Britain’s much hyped two-step electronica scene. The first example was MJ Cole’s Sincere, which was released earlier this year and frankly left us quite underwhelmed. The fabled hyperactive beats combined with glossy American-style R&B pop production sounded as if the British had just discovered disco. Artful Dodger have racked up several hits in Britain; hopefully they’ll shed some light on what all the hubbub is about.

—B.T.

INXS, Shine Like It Does: The Anthology (Rhino) Following the trend of superseding concise-but-ill-chosen one-disc hit collections with overstuffed-but-exhaustive two-disc anthologies, the surviving INXS-ers now offer a more complete summation of their career, including such previously MIA classics as “Don’t Change” and “Kiss the Dirt.”

—N.M.

Judas Priest, British Steel/ Defenders of the Faith/ Point of Entry/ Screaming for Vengeance (Sony/Legacy) At the height of alternative rock in the early ’90s, the term “metal” became kind of a dirty word, even despite its obvious influence on grunge. Lately, though, there’s been a bit of a metal renaissance, with many musicians having reached the conclusion that, yes, much about the genre is silly, but the music itself is still pretty damn fun. For proof, check out these Priest reissues, complete with bonus tracks. British Steel is alone considered one of metal’s classics, and includes, of course, “Breakin’ the Law.” You can also impress your friends when Priest come back into vogue this fall with the release of the film Rock God, based on a Priest cover band’s singer.

—B.T.

Pastor Troy, Face Off (Universal) With Outkast, Goodie Mob, and the entire Dungeon Family in general, Atlanta has become the new mecca of hip-hop. Pastor Troy has been rumbling in the scene for a while and made a name for himself a couple of years ago by dissing Master P on a single. That single, “No Mo Play in GA,” is included on the album as well as a collection of cautionary gangsta tales tempered with estoric Funkadelic influences that have become the new Atlanta trademark.

—B.T.

Radiohead, Amnesiac (EMD/Capitol) Reviews have been mixed for this reportedly more rock-oriented follow-up to last year’s icy (but often beautiful) Kid A; the most common complaint is that although the guitars take precedence over electronic noises, the songs are still quite slow and bleak, and the record lacks cohesion. Still, Radiohead are one of the most influential bands in the world right now, and attention must be paid.

—N.M.

Glenn Tilbrook, The Incomplete Glenn Tilbrook (Valley Entertainment) Chris Difford’s longtime songwriting mate in Squeeze steps out for his first solo LP, which may have him feeling a little apprehensive. (See the title.) But he’s hardly alone: He’s helped out by guests Aimee Mann and Ron Sexsmith. And we’re certainly intrigued by song titles such as “Interviewing Randy Newman.”

—J.R.

Ike Turner, Here and Now (IKON/Bottled Majic) If you feel guilty for preferring Tina’s music back when bad ol’ Ike was manning the control board, you’ll want a plain brown wrapper for this baby: the composer/arranger/producer/rock ’n’ roll pioneer’s first album of new material since Jimmy Carter was president. Listen for an update of “Rocket 88,” an early Ike date with Jackie Brenston that’s sometimes called the first rock ’n’ roll record.

—J.R.

Rufus Wainwright, Poses (Dreamworks) The follow-up to Wainwright’s lush (if too punchless) 1998 debut is meant to cross over to a pop audience. Given the marvelously catchy tracks that Wainwright stingily dispensed on the previous record, an effort by the artist to reach out more is quite welcome—exciting, even.

—N.M.

Written by Noel Murray, Jim Ridley, and Ben Taylor.