AWmusic

1. Weezer – Heart Songs

2. Misha – Cruelish Heart

3. Blue Foundation – Eyes On Fire

4. Ne-Yo – Single

5. Bloc Party – Biko

6. The Virgins – Love Is Colder Than Death

7. Jem – It’s Amazing

8. TV On The Radio – Family Tree

9. Keane – Love Is the End

10. Santogold – My Superman

I’ve created this list based on 3 things:
1) it made my feet move.
2) it made me put the sh&t on repeat.
3) it made me put it on a playlist.

A. Let’s Go To War – Burn Down The Disco. This group is from Toronto and have opened for M.I.A. and Santogold, and performed at the Virgin fest. This track crosses the “urban” boundaries in my opinion, a nice mix of rock/urban/electro. I love: The intro, the bridge and the riff through the song.
Let’s Go To War – Burn Down The Disco

B. Brazilian Girls – Losing Myself. I’m pretty sure this is not a “single”. But, during their show at the Diesel house (which I weakly reviewed, lol), this track stood out to me most from their 2008 LP. I love: the bilingualism and the strangeness of her voice during the chorus.
Brazilian Girls – Losing Myself

C. Yelle – Je Veux Te Voir. This track is a re-release from 2006. Yelle is French singer from France. The intro is similar to the beginning of the 20 Fingers’ 90s track Short D*ck Man. I love: her high pitch annoying voice, the electro beat and the bridge.
Yelle – Je Veux Te Voir

D. Björk – Earth Intruders. It’s nice to see Timbaland produce something outside his tim-box and evidence that he’s beyond pop. Björk is always producing something innovative and then singing it weirdly. This song sounds like a dance march for funk and freedom I love: the lyrics, her weird articulation, and the beat.
Bjork – Earth Intruders

E. Robyn – Cobrastyle. I’ve always liked Robyn, even when she was a pop star. Robyn came back these last two years an independent artist with a dance movement. Her album is excellent, but this track is most electro danceable for me. I love: the lyrics (I press trigger, I don’t press people button) and the bass line.
Robyn – Cobrastyle.mp3

F. Kanye West – Love Lockdown. I so wanted to do this LP review, someone beat me to it. lol. Anyway, I was thoroughly impressed with this 808 album because it’s Kanye somber, electro and outside his box. The lyrics are weak as hell. I’ll make it an exception on this track because it’s heartfelt. I love: the Auto-tune, the tribal drums on the 808 and the simplicity.
Kanye West – Love Lockdown

G. N.E.R.D. – Spaz. There’s no doubt that N.E.R.D.’s Everybody Nose is a cool electro/dance track too… but Spaz’s drum-n-bass effect works so much better for me. I always like N.E.R.D.’s work anyway, but this song, it’s a step towards what I want to hear from them. I love: the lyrics “Spaz if you want to…” damn right, the drum-n-bass beat and the mix of rock for the chorus.
N.E.R.D. – Spaz.mp3

H. Santogold – You’ll Find A Way (Switch and Sinden Remix). Of course everybody loves Creator, that’s her anthem (I do too). You’ll Find A Way is always overlooked in favour of L.E.S. Artistes. This track though is “tough” though… I love: the opening beat, the whispers and the bridge.
Santogold – You’ll Find A Way (Switch and Sinden Remix).mp3

I. Janelle Monae- Sincerely Jane. A lot of people like Many Moons more, but I think it sounds too “Outkast”ee for me. Sincerely, Jane is an original urban track that’s danceable with live horns.. mid-tempo dancing maybe, lol, but I still groove to it. I love: the lyrics, the scratching, the live horns, and her voice.
Janelle Monae – Sincerely, Jane

J. Weezer – Troublemaker. Yes, I’m well aware this is not a dance/urban/electro track. But… this track is just so much fun and makes me want to rock out the dance floor. These self-proclaimed nerds’ guitars and drum line makes me move. I love: always the nerdy and sarcastic lyrics, the beat, the little interruption bridges… “I’m gonna be a rock star… marrying a biatch”. lol. This is my anthem of the year. I know.. I’m a total geek. Yes, and the buildup bridge, works every time.
Weezer – Troublemaker.mp3

I hated the track Pork and Beans, as it was crappy pop with the lack of good guitar use and clearly poor writing. The album starts off with Troublemaker, admittedly better then Pork and Beans as they decide to use some actual guitaring. The song writing however absolutely reeks. “Put me in a special school because I’m such a fool”, lyrics like this don’t leave a lot left to the imagination.

The next track The Greatest Man That Ever Lived is a little more reminiscent of old Weezer, at least musically. Lyrically I just have to shake my head again though it is sung pretty well. There’s no real insulting this track, a pretty decent one at least. At almost 6 minutes, it’s incredibly dense with experimentation, you’d have to wonder why the hell they didn’t have this idea for the rest of the album.

You already know my thoughts on Pork and Beans or can check out my thoughts that pissed off a handful of people.

Heart Songs starts off slow with a reference to Canadian Gordon Lightfoot. The problem with this track is that because it’s slow compared to the rest of a mainstream/pop album it’s really hard to grasp. The song is better that it’s slow, with so many references I don’t really care for this song. I’d say this track doesn’t fit well at all on the album and isn’t really the typical Weezer song anyway.

The next song Everybody Get Dangerous is one of those tracks that has a weak chorus. I will always HATE or rile on songs that have choruses that are either repeating words or just repeating a sentence. It ultimately ruined a potentially solid song into a crappy one.

Dreamin’ starts off pretty well, with guitaring you’d expect from Weezer and a solid chorus. A great pop song until Rivers Cuomo starts singing his verses and the song writing is in generally quite weak but it does have it moments.

Thought I Knew is a song by rhythm guitarist by Brian Bell which is actually refreshing to see someone else on the hem. I must say I kind of dug this song. The song writing is noticeably better, it just feels so much more natural though it’s not so much more ‘complex’.

Cold Dark World is a duo of vocalists but the problem is that musically they just hit it up with bass and it the beginning almost comes off as a rap. Musically I absolutely hated this one…there wasn’t much to begin with.

Automatic features another vocalist and musically it’s pretty good. The only problem if anything is that this feels like another band due the vocals shifting. Good nonetheless and great experimentation musically that you’d like to see earlier on an album.

The last track The Angel and The One is one of those epic closers to an album and I have no problem with these tracks. Some album do end on shitty notes and ending with a 6 minute dense track is quite commendable.

Rating: 2 out of 5
Overall a passable album, it’s not the worst and while there is some quality music here, I can’t believe Pork and Beans was their first hit. Some people riled on me for hating the track but come on aren’t I justified? There’s tons of indie pop better than that and it’s the kind of crappy song that grinds my gears.

I’m not breaking new ground by insulting Weezer but it’s mostly an album with misses rather then hits. There’s been much worse written about this calling this album the worst ever but it’s not complete utter crap even if I’d do without a lot of tracks and possibly Rivers Cuomo himself .

Dreamin’ by Weezer

Thought I Knew by Weezer

Buy this album from: Insound/CD Universe/Amazon

I didn’t understand what the blogosphere’s craze was with the Pork and Beans and I still don’t. I hated the song the second I heard it. It doesn’t resemble anything that they’ve done and it makes Beverly Hills sounds like a #1 hit (oh wait…). First lets dissect the music, it’s start off with a one note guitar line and the chorus is just distortion of another note. I basically can play this song if I want. Musically I don’t think people are looking for much from Weezer to begin with but lyrically is where you can argue that it was their bread and butter in the older days. I must say I’m more accustomed to older Weezer by fluke because like 5 years ago “El Scrocho” was the first track I liked and I’ll argue that it’s still their best. Lyrically, Pork and Beans also blows.

Apparently the song is supposed to be a song about them being angry for not being cool enough. Either way they use references like it’s a an advert and there is no actual flow or artistry in this song. Their rhyming ability is comparable to my high school poem abilities. It’s just downright shameful this song.

What do you get when you eat Pork and Beans? Flatulence and something resembling this song. Take a note from Weezer, eating candy with pork and beans is a terrible idea it may affect your creativity and your overall coolness.

Now onto the video:

The video has received almost 5 million views and while I can understand why…it’s almost a cheap way to get attention. Basically they gathered people who had their 15 minutes of internet fame and gave them another 3 minutes to annoy the shit out of us. From the numa numa guy, Chris Cocker, the chocolate rain guy and Kevin Federline.
KFed I HAD a lot of respect for, his appearance in WWE was actually pretty good and he was able to laugh it off with a superbowl commercial making fun of himself. Otherwise the video took an easy path to become an internet hit.

Like a major label artist knows…it doesn’t take a good track to lure people into watching your video.

The music still sucks and the video is shitty but I can understand why people are watching it.

Pork and Beans by Weezer

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.

Lemonade by Rivers Cuomo

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