Rivers Cuomo – Alone: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo Review
I go back and forth on putting out bad reviews here and there. It’s actually good for blogging to put something out negative (riles people up). I could do it for the sake of being an ass, and insulting popular things or bring to light how I didn’t really like In Rainbows all that much. It’s really about being honest (and yeah so what I still believe In Rainbows was an average effort and doesn’t match Sunset Rubdown’s Random Spirit lover) and while I should bypass being a dick for a day, usually what follows is a drought and I’ve got nothing else to write about.
Anyway Rivers Cuomo is the lead singer/guitarist of Weezer. His name probably rings a bell and Weezer is a pretty popular band with tons of mainstream success. I would say I’m a casual fan of them, loved almost all of their singles and usually whatever I picked up I dug but I was in no way a serious fan.
This is a compilation album of recordings that Cuomo made in 15 years from 92-07 with 18 tracks. This post was meant to be done on Tuesday but I was kind of annoyed by it that I HAD to listen to The Bell. One of things that annoyed me the most were the tracks under 1 minute long. I don’t really get the placement of these short “songs” and with 4 on the record that’s at least 3 too many. The you have another 3 tracks barely 2 minutes long. There’s quantity in track numbers but going back and forth proves to be more annoying.
Carrying on with the nitpicking, I know it’s intentional to leave the under produced songs up there so that it has a more raw sound and some may call it that it’s more important in seeing Cuomo’s influences, I really don’t believe I would’ve liked to hear a static-y version of Buddy Holly. It just doesn’t add anything to my musical experience other then trying to cover my ears on the new version.
I know this review has it’s clear negative tone but it’s NOT all bad. It does have its moments when you get past the filler of songs and poor track to track sequencing (imo). There are some good tracks on here, either on the soft variety when Cuomo on the acoustic and are times where the underproduction actually works when it comes to simplicity. I only really noticed that this was a better album when I started deleting some tracks.
My expectation when picking up this album was that he would set himself apart from Weezer but he really doesn’t do that at all. I’m actually starting to despise compilation albums as they don’t seem to work for me. I’ll give it a 2.75 out of 5. Better that what I originally pegged it (was feeling a 2 out of 5 or worse) before writing this post.
From a personal experience. I don’t expect to replay this album much if at all. It may be you’re thing if you’re a huge Weezer fan but Weezer did go from cool to kind of sucky (or emo as they would describe on their own website) over the years so I’m not sure how a Weezer fan would like his.
I Was Made For You by Rivers Cuomo
Buy it at CD Universe (I’m too lazy to type the full name, spare me)
Pre-order the LP version @ Insound for just $9.99
Buy the solo effort of Rivers Cuomo @ Amazon
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agreed, In Rainbows = overrated.