Reflections on the poptastic Rivers Cuomo.
Weezer is one of my favorite bands, and as in the case of most of my favorite bands, I like all of its eras and permutations, whereas most critics and fans latch on to one (the first) era and are frustrated or disappointed by the rest. Strangely, I got into them late in the game: around 2004 or so; I didn't like "The Sweater Song" when it came out much, as it seemed affected, too trendy (the trend being grunge), and I was put off of the album by a review that talked about Cuomo's apparently pro-Dungeons & Dragons lyrics.
Anyway, most critics like their first two albums, which were raw and displayed recognizable emotion. They displayed irony, but it was a kind that could be easily recognized as such: 90's snotty teen irony, with occasional faux hip hop lingo ("What's with these homies dissin' my girl?"), a retro Happy Days-themed video.
With their third album and most subsequent work, they started consistently singing in tune and toned down the grunge somewhat, alienating a lot of their fans, and as Cuomo has aged, he's cared even less about record-store clerk purism. The irony has also become more subtle and I would say more humble; sneering requires a self-regard that most self-reflective people outgrow. Even the self-mockery becomes less severe, and the distinction between pretending an air of frivolity and being frivolous becomes moot.
Through all of this, I see a pretty steady increase in musical competence and consistent good craftsmanship, smart (though not necessarily intellectual) lyrics, and a constant drive to keep the style fresh, such that each album comes from a slightly different stylistic direction. Yes, there's young angst on the early stuff that isn't on the later stuff, but I just can't believe that we must be forever slaves to the passions of 19 year olds in our listening tastes. Yes, there's also a matter of choosing his most commercial material as singles, to keep the band high profile enough to play its part in the culture and to keep the money and consumer interest rolling in, so you can ignore certain songs if you'd like.
Enough of my Weezer defensiveness. In "Trainwrecks," from the newly released album Hurley, we get a fat, pretty, kind of stupid song with very unsubtle lyrical irony of a type that I find particularly effective. Much of my favorite music (e.g. Big Star) involves some kind of clash between uplifting instruments and depressing lyrics: feeling good about feeling bad. Here we get lyrics glorifying self-destruction, and I would be impressed as hell if, say, Def Leppard (whose music is actually kind of similar to this) would sing this kind of thing as a post-destructive-phase-self-riff. But Cuomo is notorious for being nerdy and withdrawn, not a throw-the-hotel-TV-out-the-window kind of guy, though artist types can always cast their emotional instability as grandly self-destructive.
What makes the song work, though, is the sincere, straight-faced delivery of this rock and roll hymn, with just enough idiosyncrasy in the arrangement (e.g. the fluttery synth effect in the intro, trailing into the slightest hint of techno, where they could have gone with a straight church organ or something) to engage the frontal lobes.
My overall theory of pop music is that what we feeling creatures really latch on to are simple, visceral elements: the big beat, pretty major chords and plaintive minor chords, sparkly sonic effects, the power of a voice. What slots on top of that is fashion and idiosyncrasy: I most appreciate music that whose lyrics and delivery reflect my temperament, my self image, my desires. But that latter stuff is to some degree malleable and I'll argue shallow. You can get past the strangeness of a musician's personality and so appreciate a band that you used to loathe, but you can't put power into a song that isn't there.
Cuomo is one who understands this, I think, and who personally enjoys music on this mostly non-intellectual level, who can enjoy the beautiful as beautiful without having to consistently ugly it up, and this is exactly what his critics are objecting to when they dismiss Weezer's later work as pop fluff or maddeningly lazy or just bizarre. My position, as always, is that there's a lot of aesthetic enjoyment to be had out there, and you shouldn't let your uptightness get in the way of figuring out where the artist is coming from and why he or she would want to make that noise again and again and numerous concerts and for hours and hours in a studio to get it right.
-Mark Linsenmayer
Geoff says
September 22, 2010 at 3:45 pmI am a fan of Weezer, though I don’t have anything past Maladroit. This is not because I am “frustrated or disappointed by the rest”, but simply for the fact that for most of the decade I haven’t enjoyed a great deal of discretionary spending. The closer on their debut “Only in Dreams” remains one of my favourite songs. I was somewhat disappointed to discover that Pinkerton was considered a cornerstone of ‘Emo’ in the 1990s.
What I have noted of late is a growing distaste for lyrics in general. As I have changed intellectually over the decade I have also noted a lessening of my desire to listen to the half baked ramblings of musicians. But rather than let this preference limit my musical options, I just stopped listening to the words and let them become a part of the music itself. Now, this easy enough to do with Sigur Ros, but it has required some practice elsewhere. For example, Muse. If I paid attention to a lot of the lyrical content I suspect I might be somewhat irritable. But by letting the voice become another instrument I find a lot of things can be ‘saved’. I listen to the voice and listen to the lyrics, but don’t necessarily ‘hear’ the lyrics.
But that’s me.
Mark Linsenmayer says
September 23, 2010 at 11:44 amThat’s an interesting strategy, Geoff; I think that would work well with a lot of tunes. For others, the lyrical standpoint is a pretty essential part of the overall point. What I enjoy about lyrics is that they don’t have to be philosophically correct; they don’t have to represent the world fairly or even adequately, but can work instead like cubist or other abstract painting, or more commonly, like pop art, where cliches can be quoted instead of used (at whatever level of irony).
Whereas music gets at something primal and has the right-brain appeal covered, words are also evocative, and its not necessary for them to be fully baked for that to work.
By comparison (and I’m ultimately not sure how well this analogy works, but here goes:), I’ve griped on the podcast about how hard it is to write philosophy papers, because you have to second guess yourself out the wazoo, and there’s always something else you should read and submit to before finishing a single one of your original sentences. By contrast, I’ve found writing a crapload of blog posts over the past week to be pretty liberating, in that blogged ideas are only supposed to elicit readers’ thoughts and further my own mental processes, not produce something actually publishable or even that I would continue to defend upon substantial further rethinking. The podcast itself offers us the same advantage.
Geoff says
September 23, 2010 at 6:18 pmTrue, and I listen to a lot less Billy Bragg these days. But I still enjoy a good lyric. For example I enjoy Amanda Palmer/Dresden Dolls. Not so much for the content of the lyrics, as I cannot really empathise with a lot of it, but for her wonderful way with words.
As for the half baked v full baked dilemma. I guess like so much of art there is going to be a great deal that relies on the subject doing the appreciation. I probably should have steered away from half baked – that seems to imply that there was something interesting but they didn’t quite achieve the goal. More indicative of my feelings would be to say that there is some really interesting music which is spoiled by some really crap lyrics – not half baked, just bad. No amount of philiosphical contemplation of the various levels of irony are going to resurrect these songs for me from a lyrical standpoint, so I go with my strategy and I seem to apply it more often than not these days.
I can empathise with the analogy from the perspective of having submitted a great number of history essays. I guess the primary distinction here is that you are still actively creating music, and thus the questions probably take on a great deal of personal importance. The last time I picked up a guitar was 6 months ago. The last time I rehearsed with a band was 5 years ago – and that after not having played with a group in the 12 years prior to that. I am now a consumer so the question for me is what can I endure.
Brian Loftus says
September 23, 2010 at 10:02 pmThere’s a weirdness in pop music that makes an artist either genius or a random cliche guitar fumbler. I’m using genius in the sense that, some pop tunes convey a greater message then they lead one to digest. We can think of U2 and Bono as cliche in the sense there are lyrics that anyone can relate to but don’t give the listener some kind of epiphany on life.
It gets weird because it doesn’t seem clear where the genius lies, as in, who is trying to make pop lyrics represent something deeper than the surface, and who is just getting lucky from writing a cliche pop tune, that by chance, does reveal some unique perspectives.
I enjoy listening to Coldplay because I expect the cheesy cliche lyrics put to some soothing Britpop. I can imagine the lyrics are deeper than they appear because of the highly palatable phrases: “everything’s not lost”, “the truth is I miss you so bad”, but really its generic sentences with not much originality.
However, when an artist comes along and offers the listener original and unique perspectives in, somewhat, of a pop format, it could be distracting. i find Andrew Bird to be one of the leading intellectually creative musicians in both lyrical and compositional ability, but there are times I could get distracted by the fact that I’m being exposed to a serious work and have been far removed from the cliche coldplay mind numb.
So a real gem would be a a mix of highly expected pop melodies and wit in lyricism. I found the Shins to fill that order. Throwback to the fifties pop grooves and happy jangly major chords make the music intoxicating, but throw in a line as such:
“Its like I’m perched on the handlebars of a blind man’s bike”.
To your theory on pop music, I wonder how much of our psyche latches onto the simple on simple, or the deep hidden in simple. We could use the pop format to fool ourselves into a relaxation mode, yet all the while slipping deeper things to think about as we tune out.
Mark Linsenmayer says
October 14, 2010 at 12:21 pm@Brian: I’d not heard of Andrew Bird but have now gotten ahold of a couple of his albums and am dig ’em, so thanks for that!
Since we’ve got another philosophy of art episode coming up, I’ll post some more music ramblings to react to that.