Redefining the term "diminishing returns"

For a band that took a four year hiatus after its second album, Weezer has been hitting us with new jams at a pace that's almost distressing, at least to those of us who have since come to wish they'd broken up after their unbelievably brilliant second album, which looks more and more like ether Matt Sharp was secretly in charge of everything, or it was just a freak accident.

This week Weezer are dropping yet another shit bomb on an unsuspecting public, and yes, I'm dismissing it with the term "shit bomb" without having heard a single song. See, every time Weezer puts out a new album, I hear enough people say "it's not that bad" that I end up checking it out, even though I know it absolutely will be that bad, and thus far, each one has been even worse than the one before it.

When the post-Pinkerton comeback started with a second self-titled album (the so-called "green" album), Weezer were mired in a genre that I just made up called "safety rock," songs assembled from an interchangeable grab-bag of bland verses, bland choruses that were loud enough to be distinguished from the verses, and guitar solos that were simply the verse melody, except on a guitar. The next phase, represented by Maladroit and Make Believe, found Weezer trying on a couple of different but equally radio-friendly hats: faux-pop-metal, faux-new-wave, lazy approximations of "El Scorcho" with added studio polish.

These albums were terrible, but not completely beyond hope, as they occasionally yielded a dull but somewhat pleasing single ("Island in the Sun"), and in one case, a brilliant pop song that remains the sole post-90s beacon of hope ("Keep Fishin'").

Since then... well, I think comparing the third self-titled album (the so-called "red" album) and Raditude to the Jonas Brothers or Katy Perry would be charitable, in that those are acts that make music that is competently performed and recorded, designed to separate teenagers and tweens from their parents' money before they grow old enough to discover better music. And they've engaged in a myriad of promotional stunts that are so numerous and so embarrassing that I don't even want to list them.

Now comes Hurley, with its gimmick title and gimmick cover, the latter being a possible attempt to cover up a sponsorship from the Hurley clothing company (and yes, when you're as rich and famous as Weezer, it IS still possible to sell out). As for me, I've learned a lesson I would have learned years ago, had I not spent so many countless hours of my childhood with Weezer's first two albums: Hurley is a steaming pile of shit until proven otherwise. Unless ten different friends of mine come to me begging and pleading to give it a chance, because it really is that great, it's an F, a 1/5, a 0%.

And with this new album comes the news that Weezer are contemplating a tour in which they play each city two nights, once playing their self-titled debut (the so-called "blue" album) in its entirety, and once playing Pinkerton in its entirety. I'm going to make the same easy joke everybody else is: apparently even Weezer have no interest in hearing new Weezer material.