‘Raditude:’ Not Rad, No Tude

November 2, 2009 • By Jeff Wade,
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There is a point early on “Raditude,” Weezer’s seventh album, where frontman Rivers Cuomo moans that “someday I might ain’t have much to say.” That day came about 10 years ago. Weezer’s perpetual decline has caused the release of a new album to be less a cause for excitement and more like an ominous and ever lingering threat.

Weezer’s self-titled debut was an album that had a synthesis of the Cars’ power pop and the arena rock posturing of Kiss that felt indebted and independent of the mid-1990s grunge scene. Weezer must have forgotten how to make smart, hook-filled power pop as the tinny, hallow and overproduced music found here has more in common with the Jonas Brothers than any of the aforementioned bands.

There are songs here where a married man just shy of his 40s bemoans being sent to his room, parents getting in the way of romance and not being able to get ice cream. Cuomo has always had a sense of arrested development, yet this is worlds away from taking solace in “X-Men” comics and “Dungeons and Dragons” as he did in earlier in his career.

Cuomo alternates between king of the club and king of the geeks without any sense of irony or self-consciousness. Unless Cuomo is the Tyler Durden of past-their-prime rock-bands, this odd duality is hard to understand. Attempts at sincerity seem hallow and calculated. Both “I Don’t Want to Let You Go” and “Love Is the Answer” are groan-worthy ballads that fall flat in every possible way.

Simplicity is one thing, but being absolutely inane is another. Tracks like “The Girl Got Hot” and “I’m Your Daddy” are vapid and unfulfilling, with their simplicity resulting in songs that just won’t stop playing in one’s head. No song embodies this as well as “In the Mall” which rhymes mall with fall which in turn rhymes with hall over the safest and most sanitized faux punk rock this side of the Vans Warped Tour.

Everything from the subject matter to the subtext has been done better by this band. Being less then enamored with the cycle of partying and being cripplingly unsure of oneself was the basis of the band’s classic second album “Pinkerton”. Cuomo turning his idiosyncrasies and fascinations into huge hook-filled pop songs is what put this band on the map in the first place, yet the whole thing feels just as phoned in as the Lil Wayne that appears on “Can’t Stop Partying”. The band might not be able to stop partying, but there are a lot of people who wish they would.

Contact Jeff Wade at wadeja@jmu.edu

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2 Responses to “‘Raditude:’ Not Rad, No Tude”

Bummer on November 2nd, 2009 8:08 am

I personally prefer Jonas Brothers…at least their POV is honest for their age and lifestyle.Like Weezer USED to be. Sigh. Always sad to see agroup squander their potential.
Rivers Cuomo on November 2nd, 2009 11:23 pm

I might have taken your zingers to heart if you had only learned to spell “hollow” correctly.

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