Weezer - Hurley (formerly The Red Album thread)

[Wolfe]

Are the "Summer Songs 2000" songs available anywhere? ITunes or Weezer's site? Were they ever officially released in any form?

B. Wolfe

[LpF]

You should be able to get them all here.

[sean]

Last I checked, the only ones that were floating around were the band-sanctioned edits of the songs which, in some cases, cut them down a little too much.  If you have a song where the first and third verse repeat, and then cut out the third verse, it makes for a pretty short song.

In some cases, they were better recordings than had ever been available, though.  It was fun to be a Weezer fan from fall of 2000 to mid-2001, because those songs would randomly trickle out.  Suddenly you'd find out three more songs had leaked on-line, and one of them was total crap sound, but it was still a new Weezer song after they had presumably broken up.

[sean]

That's true.  I just busted those out pre-Red release, and they are really great songs.

I have a drive full of MP3s that I bring to work, so I just dropped those into my Media Player...

Man, they're good.  I forgot about "Your Sister".  Even the bad ones ('My Brain') are as good as anything they've done since.

[ScottE]

I love the Blue Album and Pinkerton, and kind of like the Green Album. I listened to Maladroit and Make Believe a couple times when they came out but haven't in years.

I just got the Red Album but I haven't listened to it yet. However, I have listened to "Pork & Beans" about fifty times since it was released as a single. I love this song.

[MattKelly]

What do you all make of "The Greatest Man that Ever Lived"?

I heard it at Perez Hilton a few weeks ago (don't ask), and I was...bemused.  Very interesting, jumping from genre to genre...which I would usually like.  I'm not sure.  I posted a GLOWING review of MAKE BELIEVE a few years ago and I've come to only like one or two songs on it.  I don't want to drink the kool-aid again.

[nate.3.0]

What do you all make of "The Greatest Man that Ever Lived"?

The lyrics are corny.  The only part of the song I really dig is the vocal arrangement in the Wilson-esqe segment.  Musically, I appreciate what they were trying for... but it just doesn't work for me.

[sean]

I was in a bar tonight playing all sorts of Weezer songs, and first it made me want to listen to Pinkerton again, but then they played a song I didn't recognize but sounded like Rivers.  If it was them, it was the best hook they've done in years.  I kind of want to listen to the album now.

[hayden elder]

i really love most of the album, but it's my least favorite weezer album because it's so uneven.  honestly i think the worst song on the album is "thought i knew".  the music is really bleh and the vocal performance is whiny and annoying.  but it's written and sung by scott, and if i wanted to hear his music i'd buy a space twins cd.  there's a reason i don't own any space twins cds.

anyway, i don't really like the contributions from the other band members.  pats song is good musically, but his voice isn't strong enough to carry it.  

i love "greatest man...", but i love the corny, fun lyrics.  that's what rivers has always been good at.  but then again i'll go ahead and say that lyrics are probably the last thing of importance for me when it comes to music.  melodies and arrangements are pretty much all i care about.  and "greatest man..." has some really amazing melodies and arrangements.   i think my favorite songs on the album are "troublemaker", "pig" and "miss sweeney", but there are some other really great stand out tracks on it.

but then again, i pretty much love all of their albums, including make believe.  make believe has such amazing melodies and rivers' vocal performance is just stellar throughout the album.

[nate.3.0]

Just got the bonus tracks from the deluxe and the iTunes exclusives.  Listening to them now and I gotta say... "Miss Sweeney" is like what I want a Weezer album to sound like!  That song's great.

EDIT:  Okay... I like the bonus material more than the majority of the album.

[Amusing Pseudonym]

What do you all make of "The Greatest Man that Ever Lived"?

I've only heard it once, having just started listening to the album this morning on the way to work.   Initial thoughts:   I don't care for the song unto itself, and the combination of "Troublemaker" (the most aggressively monotonous song I've heard in a long time -- it literally contains three notes) and "Greatest Man" (a Halloween party at Brian Wilson's house) felt like a really weird way to start an album.  As if the band put the filler up front in order to lower expectations and make the rest of the songs seem great by comparison.

[LpF]

Just got the bonus tracks from the deluxe and the iTunes exclusives.  Listening to them now and I gotta say... "Miss Sweeney" is like what I want a Weezer album to sound like!  That song's great.

EDIT:  Okay... I like the bonus material more than the majority of the album.

The bonus tracks, combined with the best tracks from the album proper, make the album truly great IMO.  The first ten tracks are just OK.

[JimMoore]

I've only listened to it once so far, and I'm pretty wary of the band at this point, but so far, I think I like maybe half the songs.  There are some great melodies in there.  

Rivers Cuomo really seems to have lost something when it comes to lyrics.  The album is riddled with really easy, uncreative rhyme-for-the-sake-of-rhyming lines, such as "Put me in a special school cuz I am such a fool".  

I hope the album grows on me, but right now, I'm way more interested in the new Ladytron CD.

[Donnacha]

I hope the album grows on me, but right now, I'm way more interested in the new Ladytron CD.

I listened to "ghosts" and wasn't that impressed. How's the rest?

[JimMoore]

I like it.  They go in some new directions here and there, which is cool.  Ultimately, I don't think it's as good as Witching Hour, but a lot of their stuff tends to grow on me over time, and I expect this to do the same.