9.6.2010 | 4:45 pm

First Look: Weezer – “Hurley”

Let’s start with the facts: The first two Weezer albums are incredible, enduring classics. The Blue Album is great and Pinkerton is a serious work of genius — one of the best and still most misunderstood albums of the ’90s. (Note to the universe: It is a totally self-hating diary exhumation and a concept album about Madame Butterfly!) Since then, the band has flailed between outright embarrassment, fan/critic/self-hatred, flashes of brilliance and, for the most part, adequacy. Hurley, the band’s first release for Epitaph Records and also their first with dude from Lost on the cover, continues along this trajectory, presenting Marshall stack power chords, KROQ-ready choruses and pitiful, ridiculous lyrics.

Unlike the group’s last effort, Raditude, Hurley’s surprise-free: three-minute songs, a ballad or two and nothing approaching the insanity of “The Greatest Man That Ever Lived.” “Run Away,” with the addition of acoustic guitars and swaying backing vocals, almost approaches Replacements territory and is the disc’s only truly worthwhile moment. That it comes after “Where’s My Sex,” one of the worst tracks in the Mariana-plumbing Weezer catalog, is par for the course at this point. The second half has the better stuff — “Run Away,” “Hang On” — but if you manage to get that far, you’ll wonder why you’re not listening to Jimmy Eat World, or Paramore, or any band that’s ever released a competent alternative rock record in the last 10 years. If you make it to the end of “Smart Girls,” you’re a better man/woman than I. (Is it better than LCD Soundsystem’s “Drunk Girls,” though? It just might be.) Update: Our pals at TwentyFourBit report that “Run Away” is the infamous Ryan Adams collaboration, which explains the ‘Mats influence, and Rawkblog hero Michael Cera sings and plays guitar/mandolin on “Hang On.” So, you know.

Like basically every post-Pinkerton Weezer release, Hurley is a two-and-a-half to three-star record made unlistenable by the zombie band behind it, oozing puss, smelling of some unknowable tragedy and so gruesome and sad you can’t look away — time after time after time. Unless you’re 15, in which case, hey, new =W= album! Let’s post our favorite songs on Tumblr!

(Stream Hurley on Weezer’s MySpace, if you want to ruin your day)

Here’s “Run Away”:

WR by b936372

More posts about: 2010

  • Anna

    I definitely agree with your review. just streamed the album on their myspace.

    Run Away is definitely the best/most adequate of the bunch.
    and NO smart girls is NOT better than drunk girls. in fact, i think drunk girls gained a couple stars in my itunes rating just because of context.

  • http://thedaysoflore.com/ Mark TDoLore

    I probably won't even bother listening to the new album…Make Believe was the final straw for me. That said, the Green Album is great piece of power pop. Anyone who thinks otherwise is out to lunch.

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  • http://twitter.com/iambrandX Brand X

    @NAP: Being a critic means not concluding anything before you listen to the record. This album is useless mediocrity by anyone’s standards (again: why would anyone want to listen to this when Paramore’s on tour?) and flat-out awful by Weezer’s.

    I didn’t start listening to Weezer until 2001 or so, and got “Blue” and “Pinkerton” at the same time.

    “Branched out?” This is the most flat, generic rock record they’ve made since “Green.” Again, like I said: no surprises. “Greatest Man on Earth” is a fantastic track, but this album has absolutely none of that kind of inspiration.

  • =w= forever

    this review sucks dick. same with the two guys on the bottom.

  • NAP

    Based on this review, I think nostalgia has attached a false sense of greatness to the Green Album in your mind. Catchy guitar riffs mixed in with extremely shallow and often silly lyrics is as apt a description of the Green Album as it is Hurley, so it's hard for me to understand how you can think so highly of the former, and spit at the latter. When Pinkerton was first released, it was an overlooked masterpiece. It was scoffed at and ignored for years. It was because of -that- reception that Cuomo changed his trajectory, shallowed out his lyrics, and turned Weezer into what it is today (which isn't nearly as terrible as you claim). It's in that way that fans like you helped create the Weezer of today, because I'd bet a fair amount that you hated Pinkerton when it was released, too, and only agreed that it was a masterpiece once everyone else realized it was.

    Weezer has branched out and experimented, which has admittedly been a mixed basket. However, it's this process that is creatively rewarding for a band, and prevents a “cementing” into one niche or genre. Of course, Weezer has been criticized for such creativity. And now with Hurley, and a return to some of the band's earlier style, there's still an almost excessive amount of hyperbole in its criticism (such as describing a track as “…one of the worst tracks in the Mariana-plumbing Weezer catalog…” Really?).

    You concluded that Weezer was terrible and could never live up to Pinkerton before you even listened to this album, so it's obviously self-fulfilling that you hate it. Sadly, it's not 1996 anymore, and never will be. Even if it was, though, and this was a review for Pinkerton -instead- of Hurley you'd probably still hate it.

  • Dave Rawkblog

    @NAP: Being a critic means not concluding anything before you listen to the record. This album is useless mediocrity by anyone's standards (again: why would anyone want to listen to this when Paramore's on tour?) and flat-out awful by Weezer's.

    I didn't start listening to Weezer until 2001 or so, and got “Blue” and “Pinkerton” at the same time.

    “Branched out?” This is the most flat, generic rock record they've made since “Green.” Again, like I said: no surprises. “Greatest Man on Earth” is a fantastic track, but this album has absolutely none of that kind of inspiration.

  • NAP

    BrandX: If we're following your definition of what it means to be a critic, then what I said stands. The bias of “Weezer sucks -now- compared to -then-” is all over this review. With that said, then obviously the album never even had a chance.

    I also don't think that “[t]his album is useless mediocrity” or a “…flat, generic rock record…” but apparently my standards as “anyone” don't mean much, here.

  • Dave Rawkblog

    If you genuinely like this, there's not much more I can do than tell you there are so many better bands you could be spending your time on, but it's your life.

  • NAP

    Dave,

    I hope that unnecessarily condescending me and other Weezer fans has helped improve your day.

  • http://www.rawkblog.net/ David Greenwald

    I'm not being condescending. I'm being honest. This blog exists for a single purpose: to help people find great music. When you choose to listen to “Hurley,” you are consciously deciding to not listen to thousands of superior, life-fulfilling albums and that makes me sad, NAP.

  • Realgone74