Uncle!
Can I give up? I’ve kept a pretty upbeat attitude when it comes to Weezer as of lately. I always hope for the best, and if I’m disappointed I’ll just say “maybe next year” and move on.
But, “Can’t Stop Partying” is, well not quite the Weezer folks have eulogized over the years, nor is it the more pragmatic Weezer of the past handful of years. It’s, well, just plain odd:
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For years Weezer have oddly been pegged with the emo tag despite the fact that neither their narrative nor their musical choices ever really aligned them with that scene/sound. Sure, Rivers Cuomo’s taste in horn-rimmed glasses and sweater vests had some impact on emo fashion at one era, and many semi-popular and fifteen-seconds-of-fame emo acts would name drop Pinkerton or The Blue Album on just about every interview. But, at their heart (no pun intended), Weezer is a band started by a geeky-looking kid with a penchant for heavy metal licks and a strong sense of pop sensibilities. At one point the band stumbled upon feedback and lyrical dissonance, but those days are far gone.
So, why does Weezer appear to be chasing the whole electronic-emo/scrunk (that’s screamo-crunk) sound that’s oh-so-hot among tweens at the moment? There’s nothing wrong with mixing up the usual mess of music with a pinch of electronic keys, a dash of a drum sampler and even a bit of rapping. But something’s amiss with “Can’t Stop Partying,” and it could be because the kids already stumbled upon this musical equation lightyears ahead of Weezer. Just take a listen to Framing Hanley’s (rather dull) cover of Lil Wayne’s “Lollipop”:
[youtubevid id=”vbUR0SRceD0″]
In Weezer’s case, I guess this is what they refer to as “dad rock.” Dad rock isn’t “rock music made for older people,” but it’s the sound of older artists chasing the hottest trends in music today. A lot of scrunk/crunkcore/electronic-emo already contains a rather hollow element to it: something really strips the sincerity from a song when the lyrics discuss vapid consumption and shallow views of other people, which is what I always found personally confounding about something like scrunk. Yet, in some way a band like 3OH!3 manage to make such vapid beats their own, spicing up fairly misogynistic wordplay with humor and (shudder) smart wordplay. Is that a good thing? Depends on who you talk to.
Why, then, is it “ok” for an act like 3OH!3 to carry on their ways than it is for Weezer to hop the bandwagon? Well, 3OH!3 started without a bandwagon in sight, much less another band like them around. It’s a sound all their own, and 3OH!3 own it. And Weezer? Well, they just sound out of touch boasting about an insatiable thirst for Patrón and E.
Simply put, it’s a little out of character. I’d imagine every Weezer fan who feel in love with the band because of “Buddy Holly,” “Undone (The Sweater Song),” “Say It Ain’t So,” “Pink Triangle,” “El Scorcho,” “Why Bother,” “Hash Pipe,” “Island In The Sun,” “Keep Fishin’,” “Dope Nose,” “Perfect Situation,” “Beverly Hills,” and even “Pork and Beans” probably doesn’t know what to think of “Can’t Stop Partying.” That’s probably because the Weezer they fell for expressed something completely different from the one that drummed up “Partying.” Those songs about hopes, dreams, anguish and joy have ultimately given away to empty-headed chants that rhyme “ARP” with “VIP.” What was so endearing about Weezer was that they didn’t cater to the VIPs, and now it all seems like some joke everyone but Cuomo can’t seem to decipher. And no amount of Patrón can fix that.
well… I think “out of character” is being generous. The truth is that Weezer’s albums since Green have had a feeling of insecurity, and now it seems it’s graduated to total loss of identity.
Well put!
Leor Galil - Ex-Spectator – Lil Wayne Drops No Ceilings - True/Slant
[…] Wayne can do it all. Pleading guilty to guns charges. Dropping rhymes on a terribly conceived Weezer track. And now releasing the mixtape No […]
In a world of a million bands trying SO hard to be something that they are not, i laugh at this article for not getting the joke. I never read reviews and this is why. If your argument had merit and heart, i would easily understand even though I don’t agree. It’s a fun song by a fun band that has muscles so why not flex them and get the “hottest” rapper these days to join them in it. I feel bad for you guys. You probably hate your random shuffle on your ipods. =w= for life. Back to never reading review for this guy. CHeers. Michael
I’d laugh at the joke if it were funny, but Cuomo seems to have lost his grasp on songwriting long ago.
Clearly, you are a Weezer fan through and through, and that’s great! It’s fantastic that you love the band so much that you’ll buy every release, pour over every song and defend them on random review posts by guys you’d never read a “review for” (umm… what?) I’ve got those connections with plenty of bands I love too, but I’ve also fallen out with some groups over the years because their new material just sucks the sap out of things. I’ll still love ’em, but my love will be somewhat tainted.
And I disagree about the song being in any ways “fun” – it literally sounds like 3rd rate, watered down 3OH!3 and has the lyrical dexterity of a brokeNCYDE song. And here’s where we disagree: I could care less about a band flexing it’s muscles. That’s called masturbation. It’s the reason prog gave way to punk, hair metal to grunge: it’s glutenous nonsense that has little to do with expressing much of anything. There’s nothing wrong with fun, sure, but if the joke’s on anyone, it’s on the poor hard-headed Weezer fans who’ll purchase this song on three different colors of vinyl.
So excuse me for not “getting the joke.” Here I was thinking Weezer was an earnest band who wrote fairly introverted songs (again, why they’re so often pegged as emo). So to say it’s one big joke? What is, their original sincerity? Or the fact that they’ve taken a 180 degree turn without any seeming artistic incentive? Or the fact that your argument has no heads, tails or in-between?
Leor Galil - Ex-Spectator – Snuggle up to the Weezer Snuggie - True/Slant
[…] It’s good to know Weezer are still able to make something good, even if it isn’t music. […]
Now come on if you cant see the joke in the lyrics of this song and the way Cuomo sings them then you are just being obtuse. He is obviously parodying the same songs that you are trying to say he is writing. see it takes a higher level of thinking to understand parody and satire. Once you’ve written too many songs to count you start to poke fun at not only your own song writing but also the writing of others.
Oh right, you see, I must have missed the Bob Dylan comedy album… He’s been around so long he’s must have had like 3, right?
Parody and jokes only work when the joke is actually funny. It’s the same rule that makes and breaks comedians, and the same rule that makes Chris Rock’s racial jokes palpable and hearing those same jokes from practically anyone else just plain racist.
If there’s any parody here, it comes off like self-parody. Cuomo’s never had much of a multifaceted voice – the only thing remotely different about his performance on this song happens to be the electronic/autotune action on the breakdown… And the inclusion of Lil’ Wayne, hands down the most popular rapper out there at the moment who’s not exactly known for his scathing commentary about partying, doesn’t really make any “joke” clearer.
Unfortunately, it just comes down to the point where this track simply isn’t good. The hooks are kinda bland, it sounds like third-rate anything electronic-rock and the lyrics are so un-noteworthy, boring and flat-out bad it sounds like a joke in and of itself that Weezer would even make something like this.