Weezer - Raditude (2009)

Review by Jonno Seidler

Driving through the CBD with the new Weezer record blasting through your speakers, you are assailed with a volley of unanswerable questions:

• “How does a band this dumb manage to retain a record contract?”

• “Why do I have a puerile fascination with Rivers Cuomo’s love life (or lack thereof?)”

• “How many songs can you make out of the same four chord, ‘I’m a loser but somehow infinitely cooler than you’ shtick?”

• “What the hell is Lil' Wayne doing on this album?”

The band who managed to name a whole swag of albums after primary colours was never going to change the world. In fact, they are very good at what they do – making kick ass summer pop rock music.

But that is it.

The way Stereogum and their contemporaries fawn over Weezer makes you think that they are God’s gift to music. Far from it; "Raditude" is entertaining – which is fine – but not life changing in any respect.

Rivers’ lyrics will make you crack a smile. The guitars and drums are so tight that they might just crack under pressure. But the forays into hip-hop territory are woeful.

It doesn’t matter if Cuomo finally got that Literature Degree he forsook for a decade of rock hedonism; he is still not black and no amount of producers and guest spots will change that.

Weezer fans, like KISS fans and U2 fans and their respective new releases, will find absolutely no faults in this record. They will think the smarmy title, the ridiculous song titles (The Girl Got Hot) and overall pre-pubescent thematic content is just swell.

Problem is, when Fall Out Boy or Blink 182 act like teenagers, they get blasted for being immature - and their music is more developed.

Weezer, however, are still stuck in first gear where they will happily remain for the rest of their careers. Worse things have happened.

Definitely have a spin of the hip-hop collabos for a laugh - and to prove why cross genre songwriting is a privilege, not a right.

RATING: 2.5 out of 5

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