Saturday, May 21, 2005
The Sith Get Their Revenge . . . and Weezer . . . and the Twisted Head of Fandom
I've spoken or written to a number of people lately about the new Weezer album. Weezer's lucky to even have a fifth album out -- let's get that out of the way, right away. The conclusion I've come to, unfortunately though, is Weezer has been co-opted by fandom. Allow me to illustrate. Here are the public's reactions* to Weezer's albums through the years:
Public Perception Upon Release:
Weezer: It's OK. Pretty catchy. They make nerd rock. But how long can they do this? Guess they made some funny videos.
Pinkerton: Oh, this sure isn't what we expected. This isn't like the Blue album! What happened to the fun, catchy songs?! Where's Fonzie?
Green Album: What the hell is this? Are they trying to be commercial? Where's all the great soul-baring lyrics of Pinkerton? Where's the honesty? Where's the integrity? This . . . this is all just a bunch of catchy, radio songs! Sellouts!
Maladroit: Huh? This is so . . . heavy! And . . . there are guitar solos! No! Where's my Weezer?! This isn't Weezer! They made this too fast! That's the problem! This came out too fast on the heels of the Green Album. They need another five-year break.
Make Believe: Weezer has raped my childhood. What is this crap? Now I have to re-think all of their previous work. How can I like anything when they put out . . . this? It's so much like everything else they've ever done!
Public Perception Now (not including the just-released Make Believe):
Weezer: A rock-pop masterpiece. A gem of the modern age.
Pinkerton: People should make babies to this music. It will change your life.
Green Album: Utter bubblegum crap. The babies people made to Pinkerton should be sacrificed because of this.
Maladroit: Meh. They still released it too fast. They're so over.
*Admittedly, these are my wholly subjective summarizations of perception, I realize.
While the irony and lack of logic are obvious, my main problem is with how this all gets communicated. Somebody reviews it, mentioning the above. The good ol' Associated Press picks it up, and all the sudden, hundreds of thousands of readers are taking some gonad's opinion for fact.
It's fitting I saw Revenge of the Sith the same week I bought Make Believe because Star Wars garners the same reactions that Weezer does. For some reason, when fandom grabs ahold of something, it only does so in frustratingly polarizing fashion. Something can either save your life or rape you. That's comforting, I guess, if you like to play War.
Star Wars is perhaps even more stratified than Weezer. But it's no less affected by the media game. Every single review you will read of Revenge of the Sith will claim that the last two prequel movies were terrible. Oh, what the hell? Let's do it for Star Wars too.
Public Perception Upon Release:
A New Hope: Landmark! Breathtaking! Lucas is a genius! More! More! More!
The Empire Strikes Back: Huh? What the hell do we do with this? It's a middle chapter. Well . . . I guess it was fairly exciting. Nice big surprise at the end. But, you know? It didn't capture the sense of adventure that New Hope did. Kind of a disappointment.
Return of the Jedi: It's not as good as the last two, but it does the job. It's clunky in parts, but I guess it'll have to do.
The Phantom Menace: Dialogue and acting is so bad. But, overall, the effects were great and it was pretty fun.
Attack of the Clones: All right, it was a lot better than that dreadful Phantom Menace. But still, the acting and the writing are terrible. Great Yoda fight at the end, though!
Revenge of the Sith: Much, much better than those dreadful two prequels! Maybe even better than Return of the Jedi! Still, the acting and the dialogue sucked, but it was very exciting, and we finally had fun.
Public Perception Now (not including the just-released ROTS):
ANH: Very good. A bit dated, though.
TESB: Brilliant! People should make babies to this movie!
ROTJ: Quite a step downward. Nearly awful.
TPM: Awful.
AOTC: Awful.
What's the bottom line to all this? Both Weezer and Lucas have reached that magical point in the road in which -- no matter what stars align -- they cannot win. Luckily for them, even the people who hate their work are still buying it. For example, more than just a few fans who hated TPM and AOTC must have shown up to watch ROTS already (which apparently made a record $50 million in a day). Go figure.
What do I think? I'm too biased to write a Star Wars review, that's for sure. Nevertheless, I laugh and sigh every time a read a review of ROTS that claims one of the reasons the movie fails is because of the terrible, coughing voice of the droid leader. This is what people spend their time writing. I can't even believe I just wrote that sentence. The movie sucks because of the droid leader's voice. Let's all think about that for a minute. Better yet . . . .
And Weezer? It's good. I admit, there are moments in which the writing is entirely underwhelming . . . . almost . . . almost, but not quite to the point of the wretched TA-AR. Blagh!
Cough it out, Will. Cough it out. It'll be OK.
The melodies are still very well-written, but they've taken a real emotional turn. There are times, listening to this, that I've thought to myself, "High school lyric-writing." I guess my main gripe is, as much as I enjoy the record, it's a lot of love songs. And after listening to other pop I've bought recently, it seems a bit thin. But it's worth the purchase.
After all, it didn't rape me or save my life.
Public Perception Upon Release:
Weezer: It's OK. Pretty catchy. They make nerd rock. But how long can they do this? Guess they made some funny videos.
Pinkerton: Oh, this sure isn't what we expected. This isn't like the Blue album! What happened to the fun, catchy songs?! Where's Fonzie?
Green Album: What the hell is this? Are they trying to be commercial? Where's all the great soul-baring lyrics of Pinkerton? Where's the honesty? Where's the integrity? This . . . this is all just a bunch of catchy, radio songs! Sellouts!
Maladroit: Huh? This is so . . . heavy! And . . . there are guitar solos! No! Where's my Weezer?! This isn't Weezer! They made this too fast! That's the problem! This came out too fast on the heels of the Green Album. They need another five-year break.
Make Believe: Weezer has raped my childhood. What is this crap? Now I have to re-think all of their previous work. How can I like anything when they put out . . . this? It's so much like everything else they've ever done!
Public Perception Now (not including the just-released Make Believe):
Weezer: A rock-pop masterpiece. A gem of the modern age.
Pinkerton: People should make babies to this music. It will change your life.
Green Album: Utter bubblegum crap. The babies people made to Pinkerton should be sacrificed because of this.
Maladroit: Meh. They still released it too fast. They're so over.
*Admittedly, these are my wholly subjective summarizations of perception, I realize.
While the irony and lack of logic are obvious, my main problem is with how this all gets communicated. Somebody reviews it, mentioning the above. The good ol' Associated Press picks it up, and all the sudden, hundreds of thousands of readers are taking some gonad's opinion for fact.
It's fitting I saw Revenge of the Sith the same week I bought Make Believe because Star Wars garners the same reactions that Weezer does. For some reason, when fandom grabs ahold of something, it only does so in frustratingly polarizing fashion. Something can either save your life or rape you. That's comforting, I guess, if you like to play War.
Star Wars is perhaps even more stratified than Weezer. But it's no less affected by the media game. Every single review you will read of Revenge of the Sith will claim that the last two prequel movies were terrible. Oh, what the hell? Let's do it for Star Wars too.
Public Perception Upon Release:
A New Hope: Landmark! Breathtaking! Lucas is a genius! More! More! More!
The Empire Strikes Back: Huh? What the hell do we do with this? It's a middle chapter. Well . . . I guess it was fairly exciting. Nice big surprise at the end. But, you know? It didn't capture the sense of adventure that New Hope did. Kind of a disappointment.
Return of the Jedi: It's not as good as the last two, but it does the job. It's clunky in parts, but I guess it'll have to do.
The Phantom Menace: Dialogue and acting is so bad. But, overall, the effects were great and it was pretty fun.
Attack of the Clones: All right, it was a lot better than that dreadful Phantom Menace. But still, the acting and the writing are terrible. Great Yoda fight at the end, though!
Revenge of the Sith: Much, much better than those dreadful two prequels! Maybe even better than Return of the Jedi! Still, the acting and the dialogue sucked, but it was very exciting, and we finally had fun.
Public Perception Now (not including the just-released ROTS):
ANH: Very good. A bit dated, though.
TESB: Brilliant! People should make babies to this movie!
ROTJ: Quite a step downward. Nearly awful.
TPM: Awful.
AOTC: Awful.
What's the bottom line to all this? Both Weezer and Lucas have reached that magical point in the road in which -- no matter what stars align -- they cannot win. Luckily for them, even the people who hate their work are still buying it. For example, more than just a few fans who hated TPM and AOTC must have shown up to watch ROTS already (which apparently made a record $50 million in a day). Go figure.
What do I think? I'm too biased to write a Star Wars review, that's for sure. Nevertheless, I laugh and sigh every time a read a review of ROTS that claims one of the reasons the movie fails is because of the terrible, coughing voice of the droid leader. This is what people spend their time writing. I can't even believe I just wrote that sentence. The movie sucks because of the droid leader's voice. Let's all think about that for a minute. Better yet . . . .
And Weezer? It's good. I admit, there are moments in which the writing is entirely underwhelming . . . . almost . . . almost, but not quite to the point of the wretched TA-AR. Blagh!
Cough it out, Will. Cough it out. It'll be OK.
The melodies are still very well-written, but they've taken a real emotional turn. There are times, listening to this, that I've thought to myself, "High school lyric-writing." I guess my main gripe is, as much as I enjoy the record, it's a lot of love songs. And after listening to other pop I've bought recently, it seems a bit thin. But it's worth the purchase.
After all, it didn't rape me or save my life.
