When is a Blue Album not a Blue Album?

Last night, I paid a lot of money to see Weezer in concert for…let's see…the fifth time in my life? The band's first major tour (opening for Live in Minneapolis—I really liked those guys till they went all Jesusy); then early in Pinkerton tour again in Mpls; then, the week I moved to NYC, the tail end of the Pinkerton tour at Roseland; nine long years ago at Jones Beach, before they started pumping out mediocre albums; and now last night, again at Roseland. Want to feel really, really old? Go see your favorite college-era band in the same venue you saw them 13 years earlier, then spend the whole next day lying on your couch with a headache blogging about it. Works every time.

This was Weezer's Memories tour (sponsored by State Farm, only slightly more rock & roll than when Sears sponsored a Phil Collins tour), and as per the modern fad, it involves the band playing its classic albums in their entirety. Last night is was the band's self-titled debut release from 1994 (a.k.a. the Blue Album), tonight it's its legendary and misunderstood follow-up, 1996's Pinkerton. Together, those albums formed the bulk of the modern contingent of my college years' soundtrack (most of what I listened to in those days was 15-year-old punk and new wave), so they're indelibly hard-wired into my psyche. I wasn't sure at first which of the two shows I preferred to see, finally opting for night one, since (a) Pinkerton is a little too depressing for me to handle this time of year, and (b) Blue is just a flat-out better record, perhaps the best of the '90s.

But a quick note about my particular Weezer connection: As you may or may not recall, Pinkerton bombed when it was released. Frontman Rivers Cuomo sort of freaked out and bagged on properly promoting it, and the album was just dark, flying in the face of the reputation the band formed among nonfans as a joke-rock band (hard to blame them if the only thing you know is the video for "Buddy Holly").

By the late '90s, the band was considered all but dead, yet another example of '90s alt-rock-boom roadkill. And in 1999, still a dreadfully young man, I'd inexplicably found myself the very junior man in the music department of Rolling Stone magazine, and I lobbied hard for the Blue Album to be included in the magazine's list of the top 200 (not even 100) albums of the '90s. My bosses literally laughed at me; half of them thought I was talking about Ween. The album didn't make the list, but Foxy Brown, the Spice Girls and Billy Joel's River of Dreams were in attendance. Five years later, the Blue Album anniversary release got five out of five stars from the magazine. I love to say I told you so.

I'm getting way off the point here, which is…what? Weezer thoughts in general? As I tweeted during the show (of course), "Seeing Weezer perform the Blue Album makes me realize that I became a quizmaster only because I knew I would never be Rivers Cuomo," and I think that's one faux-profound witticism that stands up to scrutiny the next day. I couldn't fulfill the near-universal dream to be a rock star, but I still wanted to be king of the nerds.

And this thought: "the Blue Album." Such is how everyone refers to that first Weezer album, the band included, in reference to the cover hue, to distinguish it from Weezer's 2001 self-titled album (known as the Green Album) and its 2008 self-titled release (the Red Album). It's a little weird to hear it universally referred to as "the Blue Album," since for seven years, at the height of its fame and emotional power, it didn't have this name at all. It was just Weezer, or "the first album," or "the self-titled one" or "the one everyone cared about."

Even weirder is when it's rendered as The Blue Album—the italics indicative of an official album title (e.g., Pinkerton). Wrong, screams the nit-picky copy editor in me: just the Blue Album. Same as the White Album (formally The Beatles) and Led Zeppelin IV (untitled, also called Zoso, Runes, a bunch of other stoner-derived monikers).

Just nicknames, people. The Blue Album is not The Blue Album. Excuse me while I edit the Wikipedia page.

Karaoke rekap

Last night I went karaokeing with some old friends (including a member of erstwhile BQT regulars the Wandering Jews). We did it right—small, cozy group, renting a private room at a crazy Japanese place. Good times, great oldies.

I sang a total of seven songs, taking a chance : all tunes I had never before attempted (well, save for one; see below). The lineup:

"Spinning Wheel" by Blood, Sweat and Tears: Through osmosis (and my brief career in collegiate a cappella), I know just about every word. That Blood, Sweat and Tears lead singer is very easy to imitate. I kept on the bouncy theme with…

"Friday on My Mind" by the Easybeats: One of my favorite overlooked '60s hits. I had a little trouble hitting the notes on the chorus, but it's got a nice, jaunty rhythm that makes it fun to chant your way through. But I was ready to rock, so I lept into…

"When the Sun Goes Down" by Arctic Monkeys: Awesome, awesome, awesome. The shifting rhythm, the funny lyrics. You know you have a winner when everyone in the room digs it even though they've never heard it before. Time for a ballad…

"Sister Golden Hair" by America: Cheesy, but pleasantly affecting. Reminds me of an old girlfriend, who had golden hair and was somene's sister, so it got me sentimental. But I shifted back into rocking with…

"Walking Contradiction" by Green Day: I had no idea what those words were before. Weird vocal rhythm. Fun, but deceptively challenging. Then I once again plumbed the depths of sadness with…

"Across the Sea" by Weezer: Ridiculously depressing tune, but isn't all Weezer? Especially since it's about a relationship made impossible because of long distance, which happens to be a tender topic with me these days. But to finish I went with…

"We Are the World" by USA for Africa: Yes, indeed. This one I've sung once before, successively imitating the various pop stars who sang it the first time (I do a sweet James Ingram). My friends commenting that my rendition was both entertaining and educational, but I don't think I'll be doing it again; you get very lost and tired after a while, due to that drawn-out ending (I can't keep straight which part is Dylan, which is Ray Charles, which is Stevie…).

All in all, I'm a star. Don't forget how lucky you are to be my dedicated fan.

NT's greatest hits, vol. 5

We continue. The conceit: I have an iTunes playlist of my 34 favorite songs of all time, and I discuss them here, one by one, in random order. This edition…


"My Name Is Jonas" by Weezer
For a male of my age with a touch of the misfit in them, I suppose this isn't a surprising choice. Weezer's first album hit me a particularly potent time—not yet remotely a man, but couldn't possibly remain a boy—and Rivers Cuomo's intensely potent blend of rock hooks, abject sentiment, and outsider anger absolutely homed in on the tender underside of my psyche. I think that album is an absolute monument of rock & roll (eight of its ten songs are included in my ever-expanding mixtape series), and its opening track, "My Name Is Jonas," is its strongest moment.

Lyrically, I really have no idea what it means (go ahead and take a stab), but I almost feel as if that's part of the song's strength. Impressionistic, the words almost sound as if they were chosen for their sound rather than their meaning, and Cuomo spits them out with such energy that I wonder if any lyrics would have done the job. Probably not; obscure or no, there's something poignant about desperate repeating chants of "making noise!" and "the workers are going home!"

Also, it fulfills a mandate of many of my favorites: It's just a little bit experimental. The forlorn harmonica solo at the end of the raging instrumental solo and the fact that the whole song is in 6/8 time signal to anyone listening that Weezer is infinitely more interesting that the pop-punk pranksters the media framed them as in '94. (I will never understand that. During my music journalism days of the late '90s, I was laughed at—literally laughed at—for suggesting that Weezer's first record was among the top 200 best releases of the decade. Amazing.) I'm a rock purist, of course, little use for the artier genres, but I often feel a seductive pull to any rock & roll that drifts slightly into the realm of the bizarre (hence my love for Devo, although that band will not appear in this blog series). You can see that in a number of my entries so far; kind of unsurprising my favorite Steely Dan song is the one most like a standard rock tune.

A warning about "My Name Is Jonas," though; actually, a warning about all of Weezer's debut album: I find it awfully, awfully depressing. It's clear Rivers Cuomo was (is?) an awfully sad man, and like all great artists, his emotion comes through and digs into the audience. So on a melancholy Friday evening, you might want to dial up something a little more sunshiney. (Try this; a runner-up for this series.)

Next time: A new-wave classic that I played to death on my college radio show? The bombastic anthem of my high-school misanthrope stage? The soundtrack to the night of the best sex of my life? Only the random magic of iTunes can tell.

Earlier editions of NT's greatest hits:
"OK Apartment" and "Just What I Needed"
"Objects of My Affection" and "Crimson and Clover"
"Reelin' in the Years"
"Mr. Tambourine Man"