Chikadees: A Weezer’s “Raditude” review

by Homo Rodans

There is nothing wrong about being happy. As a matter of fact, today I was particularly happy:

1) the company for which I work for finally reported a profit after being struggling with the challenging economic climate for the last couple of years :D

2) a couple of long awaited new releases finally arrived to my humble life; Weezer’s new album “Raditude” and the re-make of the classic “V” mini series in ABC (come on, Visitors and your hot sexy brazilian leaderette, take me on board the mothership!)

Ok Rodans, laser beam focus please, this is an album review.

Rivers Cuomo and  Co. sound extremely happy in this disc. So happy that I think I got a new cavity in my second left upper molar.

The album opens with the late summer hit single ‘(If you are wondering if I want you to) I want you to’, a song that was born to be an instant Weezer classic with signature melodic arrangements reminiscent of the Beach Boys and such. The next track, (and my favorite song of the album) ‘I’m your daddy’, is a powerful and perfectly well balanced ‘punkp’ song (punkp = punk + pop in Rodans slang), that makes your head bang at the first four bars.

Just recently the Weezs played this one live in the Dave Letterman show, all nice and dandy dressed in warm soft blue snuggies. Hilarious. The third track is the ‘Keep Fishing’ style ‘The Girl Got Hot’ a song that, according to Rivers, talks about that girl in high school that was not worth looking at all and then you find her later in life and she happens to be an eye candy.

Up to this point I was like “wow, these 3 songs are so damn good” and then, that song with Lil’ Wayne started and everything from that point on was not as good as I thought. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against trying new stuff. I’m not either one of those hardcore fans that say that the only real Weezer is the pre-“Green album” Weezer and everything afterwards is trash.

No, no, no, but nevertheless I consider myself a Weezer fan that prefers the hardcore-melodic Cuomo and not so much his experimental alter-ego.

Unfortunately, the seven remaining songs in the disc belong more to the latter. For example, ‘Love is the answer’ (what a cheesy title to begin with) incorporates hindu style vocals and strings that make me think more about Starbucks music rather than a Weezer song. ‘Trippin’ Down the Freeway’ has the only guitar solo of the album’s official track list, and is not even an epic solo, sounds more like a filler, like “yeah, we need something here, why don’t you try that Bon Jovi style s#%t  you were playing the other day”

By the way, I got the deluxe edition that includes a bonus cd with 4 extra songs. None of them is particularly outstanding, but definitely all of them are a lot better than the Lil’ Wayne thing!

I’m sorry Weezer, but “Raditude” won’t be my album of the year. The first 3 songs and the bonus cd are worth the purchase though.

5/10

About the author: Homo Rodans is the lead singer in Lumiere, a space rock band from Mexico. We are glad to have him as a guest reviewer. Tune in on Monday for a brief history of his passion for Weezer.