Released in 1994, this debut album from Weezer is still perhaps considered by fans and critics as Weezer’s magnum opus, with only their second album, Pinkerton, vying for alternative supremacy. The album went three times platinum in the US, produced three hit singles in both the US and the UK, and was re-released in its deluxe incarnation in 2004. At the time of release though, it provided a refreshing sense of charming humour and geeky vulnerability against the general gloom of grunge. This first Weezer album was influenced by the likes of Nirvana and The Pixies, but they also introduced a strong power-pop vibe (gained in no small way from the work of Cheap Trick) that gave their music a more uplifting, perky indie rock sound, that was a real step forward in the alternative rock scene.
The album is not soft or flat however – it is very riff heavy, with fat, grating guitar chords, at times dissonant and shredding, immediate and hard. But within this guitar orientation, there was a clever nerdiness, especially present in the lyrics and vocal style. The album demonstrates complex harmonies and falsetto vocals, similar in style to barbershop quartet, and they also have a wry vulnerability to them. The lyrical content, whilst quick and sharp, also displays real, genuine insecurities, and deal with fairly harrowing concepts, such as ‘Say it Ain’t So’ which focuses on Rivers Cuomo’s attempt to make sense of his parent’s divorce, and ‘My Name is Jonas’, whose topic is the aftermath of Cuomo’s brother being in a serious car accident. The lyrics are also well constructed as well as emotive, with Cuomo creating perfect, neat little vignettes within every narrative.
This album is literally chock-full of generation defining songs, with a distinctive style that is still infectious. The group also retain a huge following too big to be considered cult. I was first introduced to Blue in sixth form, ten years after its original release, and its presence amongst my peer group, too young to have caught the album in 1994, was huge. Weezer were everyone’s favourite band, and Blue was a good contender for the most popular album. As we start to approach the album’s twentieth anniversary, I am sure its popularity is still retained by newer and older listeners alike. The album received numerous accolades, including being listed in Rolling Stone’s great 500 albums of all time, and Pitchfork’s best albums of the 1990s. Weezer’s eponymous examples how fantastic guitar music in America was in the 1990s, and is one of my favourite albums of all time.
See this at the Guardian online at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/album/c7b245c9-8099-32ea-af95-893acedde2cf?commentpage=last#end-of-comments
