Album: Everything Will Be Alright in the End
Artist: Weezer
Label: Republic
Release Date: Oct. 7
Grade: A
After a couple weak album releases, Weezer is back with their strongest album in over a decade.
In January, Weezer announced they were headed back to the studio with producer Ric Ocasek. Ocasek is responsible for Weezer (Blue Album) and Weezer (Green Album), two of the band’s most popular albums. Together they created a heavy-hitting one-two combo with Everything Will Be Alright in the End, an album that will please older and newer fans.
Their new album features intense guitar riffs and solos, many of which were absent from their more recent albums. The band’s bassist, Scott Shriner, said on his Instagram account he had been “working on some of the coolest bass parts [he had] ever done.”
In order to create their ninth studio album, the band had to take a step into the past, back to their 1994 release of “Blue Album” and 1996 release of Pinkerton.
Prior to this album, fans complained frontman Rivers Cuomo and the rest of the band had lost touch with their early days and in some ways sold out. After years of complaints, the band finally listened to their fans’ voices.
In the song “Back to the Shack” Cuomo takes an opportunity to apologize to the band’s entire fanbase for becoming disconnected. He sings, “Sorry guys I didn’t realize that I needed you so much / I thought that I’d get a new audience.”
The song’s chorus also sets up the basis for Weezer’s new album in a few simple words with, “Take me back, back to the shack” – a line directly referencing the early beginnings of the band. Another line from the chorus, “Rockin’ out like it’s ’94,” refers to the year “Blue Album” was released.
“The Shack” is where the band first started writing their music in the early ’90s. The group jammed out in the garage they transformed into a makeshift studio in Los Angeles, California. To many hardcore fans of Weezer, the Los Angeles house might be one of the most important parts of the band’s history.
A lot of this information is well known to fans that have followed the band for a long time. This album, however, is not just for the old fans; it’s for new ones as well. Everything will be Alright in the End offers a broad range of sounds with the capacity to attract a more diverse fan-base.
Weezer put a lot of work into this album outside the studio and did something not many bands do. Instead of hiding their work until the release date, Weezer released a one-minute video every Wednesday for the 23 weeks leading up to the album’s release.
The weekly videos became known as “Weezer Wednesdays.” The cryptic weekly videos were typically black-and-white and looked like they were shot with film. The videos had an overarching theme and featured brief snippets of new tracks from the album.
With so much work and dedication from the band, it’s hard not to truly enjoy this album. It’s inspiring to see a band respond to the feedback of their fans.
The band is over two decades old: Every member is in his forties and most have families. They have many hit songs that many people know and they could have been satisfied with the past and kept playing old music. Instead, the band decided to put in endless hours of work on this new album.
Just the story behind this album warrants a listen; it takes listeners back to the shack. =w=
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