Eighty percent of the new Weezer has leaked

Published May 08 2008, 01:04 AM by Carly Carioli

About a month or so ago, "Pork and Beans," a song from the Weezer's forthcoming album (their third self-titled-with-a-colorful-nickname and sixth overall) hit the internet. The general consensus on it was tentative praise: not a genuine return to form, but closer to The Blue Album than Make Believe. We personally didn't hear it - Rivers still sounded a little stiff and the lyrics seemed too clever - or, more accurately, too self-consciously goofy - by half. "I don't give a hoot about what you think" is a clunker even by Weezer's standards.

Now that eight of ten tracks have leaked to a Weezer fan messageboard, though, we'd like to amend that position. The rest of The Red Album so far makes "Pork and Beans" sound like it could have been the B-side to "Undone: The Sweater Song." Stylistically, that is, not in terms of quality.

Red is not very good. That's almost a given; anyone who's still holding out hope that these guys could ever make anything that will approach their mid-90s peak is probably delusional. But Red is different from their other recent output: instead of sounding like some band trying to do an imitation of Weezer, this sounds like Weezer getting too indulgent. Rivers Cuomo already hinted at this in interviews, but the band really did just do a little bit of everything in here from folk to neo-soul to rap. People other than Cuomo sing lead vocals on some songs. It's an unfocused mess. One song, "The Greatest Man That Ever Lived" is an awkwardly-executed mini rock opera that's based on a Quaker hymn. When they get to the spoken-word section, you might finding yourself listening to it less as a song and more as some kind of next-level experiment in "so-bad-it's-good" camp humor. And part of us can at least respect that.

DOWNLOAD: Weezer, The Red Album (most of it, at least)

-- Ryan Stewart

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