Weezer: Bring Back Matt Sharp!

A sort of Confessions of an ex-Weezer fan.

Following a surprisingly high number of positive (if still qualified) reviews, I did something I haven't done in nearly a decade: I gave the new Weezer album a chance.  

Courtesy of YouTube, I have now given several listens to Everything Will Be Alright In The End.  Part of me wants to just let myself like it, to kick back and enjoy it on its own terms, and quit trying to compare it to their '90s output (even as lead-single "Back to the Shack" openly--and rather foolhardily--invites those comparisons).

But on the other hand, Weezer still has a LOT of sins to atone for.  Make Believe alone nearly cancels out The Blue Album. Raditude almost erases Side B of Pinkerton.    

You have to understand that there was a point in my life--right around when I graduated High School (and The Green Album came out)--when I actually considered Weezer my favorite band.  Like many of my immediate generation, I listened to their legendary 1994 debut The Blue Album more times than is strictly healthy--it was a sort of punk rock for nerds, introverts, the shy yet passionate; how many times have I quit a terrible job with a triumphant "The workers are going home!"; how often have I felt to turn my back on the rat-race with the life-affirming (and eco-critical) "You take your car to work, I'll take my board/and when you're out of fuel, I'm still afloat..."; "Undone (The Sweater Song)" recalls some of my friendliest childhood memories; and 1996's Pinkerton is perhaps the most honest assessment of an awkward young man's libido ever committed to CD.  

 

Such was the goodwill bought by those 2 brilliant albums that, like far too many Weezer fans my age, I greeted their 2001 comeback The Green Album with joy, rather than the shrug that that 28-minute generic-a-thon probably deserved (hit-single "Island In The Sun" notwithstanding).  

A year later, after an unprecedented fan-outreach gimmick that had fans voting online for which new tracks to include, I bought 2002's Maladroit the day it came out, which I'd never done before nor since.  Yet even clear back then, we long-suffering Weezer fans were already having to convince ourselves to "enjoy this music for what it is", rather than compare it to their '90s classics--for the truth was that Green and Maladroit didn't compare to those first twin masterpieces at all--and in our all-too-rare honest moments, we had to admit that, as breezy fun as Green and Maladroit could sometimes be, that if it hadn't been for Blue and Pinkerton, we never would have bothered to check them out in the first place.

Yet still we soldiered on, dutifully purchasing Weezer's new albums and requesting their newest singles on local radio stations--not for what they were doing, mind you, but what we all expected, all hoped, that they would do.  There had been a 5-year hiatus after Pinkerton you see--an album critically and commercially reviled in '96, before finding second-life as a deeply-revered cult-classic spoken of only in hushed, reverent tones.  We all believed that Weezer was still just brushing off the cobwebs, getting their mojo back, regaining their confidence with these tepid new albums after Pinkerton's frightful rejection--that after tentatively testing the waters and trying their fans' devotion, they would in short order produce another Blue--or even (we dared dream!) another Pinkerton.

Then I went on my mission, where I thankfully learned to care about things far more important than mere music fandom.  Weezer apparently took another hiatus as well, for upon my return from Puerto Rico I was informed that Weezer still hadn't released anything since Maladroit.  It was when I returned to college that Weezer finally dropped their long anticipated follow-up, Make Believe.

The kindest thing I can say about that-which-will-heretofore-remain-nameless is at least I didn't pay money for it (a roommate burned me a copy).  Oh I tried, for old time's sake, I really tried to like it!  I tried to read "Beverly Hills" as some sort of cheekily-subversive parody of our celebrity-worshiping culture, rather than a symptom of it; I tried to unironically sing-along to "You're My Best Friend"; and I tried to treat "We Are All On Drugs" as an intentional joke.  

All for naught.  Here at last I could make no more excuses for them, my long-suffering patience was at an end, the last of my '90s-era goodwill was officially burned away--I had to confess, these songs were just plain awful.  The lyrics were trite, lazy, juvenile, and hackneyed; the musicianship was cliched, uninspired, and overwrought; to quote Napoleon, it was worse than a crime, it was a blunder!

My goodness, they take another hiatus and this is the best they could come up with?  Serious, their Harvard-grad frontman took a long, hard look at the direction his band was taking, and his brilliant solution was to go even dumber?!  Sweet Mercy, the subpar Green and Maladroit (which merely felt impersonal, not idiotic) were mid-period masterpieces compared to this dreck.  The overplay of "Beverly Hills" and "We Are All On Drugs" is part of why I finally quit listening to the radio altogether.  Besides, far more interesting and innovative bands--TV on the Radio, the White Stripes, Arcade Fire, Animal Collective, Andrew Bird, etc--were arising out of the indie world at the time, so I broke up with Weezer, turned off the radio, and never looked back.  

Which I never regretted.  I was of course peripherally aware of when The Red Album and Raditude and Hurley and assorted B-Side collections came out over the ensuing years; I think I gave each album's lead-single a cursory listen on YouTube, if for no other reason than to confirm that there was no reason to return to them.  It was like periodically learning about how far your ex has descended into a downward spiral--you feel sorry for them, even as you're glad that you got out of that relationship when you did.

But apparently Weezer was self-aware this entire time they were collapsing into self-parody.  2014's Everything Will Be Alright In The End is a self-conscious attempt to woo back the original core of Weezer fans who jumped ship clear back in the mid-aughts.  And like any ex, I find myself unexpectedly open to their wooing, to their offers to forget the sordid past and get back together, to love like we used to. 

Yet even as they winkingly sing "Let's rock like it's '94", I can't help but remember how much better their actual '94 music was (I never threw away The Blue Album after all).  I also can't help but imagine about how much more meaningful this disc would've been if they'd released it, say, a decade ago, or even 15 years ago.  Back then I might have thought they were finally getting their act back together, recovering their mojo.  But now it's far too late--I've known for awhile that they're not the same Weezer.

And why?  What happened between 1996 and 2000, that began their long, excruciating slide into mediocrity?  Why didn't they get better with age (as one might expect)?  I've been using break-up analogies here half-facetiously, but the truth is, an actual break-up did in fact occur within Weezer post-'96, and it's the X-factor that has been missing from and haunting Weezer ever since.

His name is Matt Sharp.  He was the bassist on their first two albums.

It's so easy to forget the bassist, isn't it.  Especially in a Rock band, the bassist is just who keeps the beat, maybe gives some backing vocals.  Meanwhile, Rivers Cuomo is the lead singer, lead guitarist, primary song-writer for Weezer--Weezer was always kind of the Rivers Cuomo band, so Matt Sharp was easy to dismiss.

Nevertheless, Matt Sharp was the bassist for Weezer on Blue and Pinkerton--and not on any subsequent album.  Not coincidentally, every non-Matt-Sharp album has sucked.

Sharp was clearly doing something to elevate the band--if he maybe was not outright writing these songs, then clearly something about his personality, his aloofness, his goofiness, his coolness, his self-confidence, was grounding and driving and challenging Rivers Cuomo as a songwriter in a manner that he has clearly never experienced since.

Serious, pay especial attention to Matt in the videos for "Buddy Holly" or "Say It Ain't So" or "El Scorcho" or "The Good Life" or even his image 3rd-from-the-left on The Blue Album's cover art--there's just an ambiance about the dude that transcends the group's whole "nerd-band" schtick, to elevate them to something truly astonishing.  I think it is fair to say that Matt-Sharp-Weezer is an utterly different band from Matt-Sharp-less Weezer--and when I say I was once a Weezer fan, I mean only of Matt-Sharp-Weezer.

I of course don't know why Matt Sharp left Weezer--maybe it was to spend more time with his own band The Rentals; maybe the first hiatus lasted too long and he just drifted away; maybe Rivers never got along with Matt; maybe Matt didn't get along with him.  Who knows and who cares.  All I know is this:

Weezer, if you are truly serious about wooing me, if you actually want me back, then you must first woo back Matt Sharp.  I'm dead serious here.  Contrary to the lyrics of "Back in the Shack," the problem was never that Pat wasn't playing drums or Rivers wasn't on lead guitar, no, not by a long shot--the problem was that Matt Sharp wasn't on bass.  You will never have actually returned "back to the shack" until Matt has rejoined you there.  In a sense, calling The Green Album their 2001 comeback is a misnomer--Weezer has never actually come back, because Matt Sharp was never with them.  

We are in fact still waiting for Weezer to get back together--all this time, we've actually only been listening to 3 guys who used to be in Weezer, performing covers of old Weezer songs, trying but failing miserably to write new songs in the same style.  The fact that the current line-up is 3/4ths the old Weezer is of no avail; I for one am no longer fooled; Weezer's post-Pinkerton hiatus is still not over, and will not be over, until Matt Sharp returns to bass.

Weezer, for your own sake, please: Get back together with Matt Sharp!  Bury any hatchets you have with him.  Offer him more money, give him partial song-writing credits, show up at his door with flowers and chocolates and a grand parade carrying streamers and banners reading "I'M SORRY PLEASE COME BACK", do what you gotta do.  For it's not us, your old fans, that you need to woo back Weezer.  It's Matt Sharp.