Saying “their old stuff was better” is such a worn out cliché, but there’s nothing else you can say about Weezer at this point.
For die-hard fans of Blue Album and Pinkerton, Rivers Cuomo and company’s last few efforts have been painful. It’s the memories of those earlier records that keep fans coming back. And Weezer’s newest album, Hurley, is the latest serving of punishment.
The band has regressed both emotionally and lyrically. Weezer has somehow gone from champions of rock wit to cheesy pop-makers stuck in a moronic adolescence. While the few tunes that are stripped down to their pure pop cores are passable (“Ruling Me”), the rest is a mess.
Cringeworthy lyrics abound on Hurley. “Where’s My Sex?” is as dumb as Pinkerton’s “Tired of Sex” is brilliant, trading the frustrated insights of the past for lines like “I can’t go out without my sex, it’s cold outside and my toes get wet.” (Amazingly that’s not even the worst line in the song, but it’d pain my fingers too much to type the more horrid ones.)
Cuomo once sang, “If I’m a dog then you’re a bitch.” If Weezer is a dog, the Old Yeller treatment should’ve happened long before Hurley.
Review Score: 3.2
*Slightly expanded from a review originally published in The Pacific Northwest Inlander*
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