Weezer
The Green Album

Release Date: 2001 | Tracklist

Rivers Cuomo was in a bad place after Pinkerton. The record had flopped critically and commercially, and Cuomo had taken this as if the world had said that his feelings didn't matter. To top it off, his two friends died the following summer. Rivers lost his mind, and ended up moving into a small apartment, painted the walls black and for four years, sat crafting an encyclopaedia of pop. Pinkerton had been too rough, so Rivers had to make Weezer's next album slick. No faults. No flaws. Just perfection. When Weezer got back together in 2001, with new bassist Mikey Welsh, they released another self titled album. Dubbed the green album by fans, it contained two of their biggest hits: Hash Pipe and Island In The Sun. But is Green actually good?

No. No it's not. This may be a controversial opinion but the Green Album f ucking sucks. Gone is the quirky but fun sound from Blue, and gone are the emotional depths and abrasive sounds of Pinkerton. Green is almost the complete opposite. It's soulless and bland, of the album's 10 tracks, only 2 stick out musically (ironically it's the two hit singles). The rest of the record is like one continuous drone of noise, with half the tracks sounding near identical. The songs 'Glorious Day' and 'Simple Pages' are right next to each other on the album and almost fade together they're that similar. The guitar tone rarely changes, the songs are over before they even begin properly, hell the record only clocks in at barely 29 minutes. Even the lyrics, normally some of the group's strongest points are incredibly basic. The only track that really sticks out as personal is the finale 'O Girlfriend', an earnest and pained track about Rivers' pill addiction during this period. There's rarely any creative ideas here, bar Island in The Sun and it's laid back yacht rock sound. The opener 'Don't Let Go' is horrible, with Rivers sounding unbearably bored on the vocals and an almost comedically weak harmonic refrain. Everything just sounds like bottom of the barrel basic Pop-Punk, there's zero life in it.

Rivers was scared to experiment, to be himself on the album. That's understandable given how Pinkerton was received, but the way Green comes out is nothing short of mind numbing boredom. The second half of the record is almost f uckin unlistenable in the fact that every song is near identical. 'Knock-Down Drag-Out' is one of the worst offenders, being This boring flat song with nothing special going for it. Rivers voice is so weak here, which is odd given how Ric Ocasek returns to produce. He made Blue sound amazing, but Green feels incredibly restrained. There's no power to these songs. Apparently Rivers made Mikey rerecord his bassline to Knockdown Dragout hundreds of times, just to get that perfect sound, and really that's what sums up this whole record. Commercial. While this isn't a bad thing, it makes every single track the most bare bones basic power pop that you will ever ever here. It's almost sad really. While the songs here are certainly catchy (especially the great singalong 'Photograph' and the admittedly pretty funny 'Crab') they have no character to them at all. Even the worst Weezer albums have character to them. Even Raditude in all it's horrible glory still had personality. Green does not. It's a sad, upsetting album but for all the wrong reasons. Certainly not a glorious day.

Standout tracks:

Photograph
Hash Pipe
Island In The Sun
O Girlfriend

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3.2 good

Rank: #175 for 2001