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Originally Posted by noisereductions
the thing about Weezer is they were never really cool. Think about it. Even Blue Album, that was kind of a fluke. They weren't moody or edgy or anything. They weren't really like the bands that were popular even then. But they did capture lightning in a bottle with that album.
Pinkerton? I loved it. And it was weird, but it didn't sell well and was slammed critically at the time. It was only deemed "cool" in hindsight. It grew a cult following or whatever you want to say.
Green/Maladroit - still not cool. They sort of fit in with some of the shit getting play like Strokes, Jimmy Eat World, White Stripes at the time. But they more appealed to Weezer FANS.
It's never been exactly cool to like Weezer. But whatever. To me it's almost the thing where they care so little about being cool that they're cool. I bet their moms think they're cool.
I'm happy to say that they're one of my absolute favorite bands.
In a weird way it's things we've talked about.... trash culture? I don't know. To some degree I feel like listening to this stuff hiding in plain sight is now more interesting to me than weird underground shit. Oddly, stuff like Weezer for example probably flies under more radars than way out-there stuff thanks to the internet and Spotify and Youtube and all.
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Interesting.
And you do whatever you want. Don't give a second thought to coolness. Cool, like punk, is really an illusion, and never something you can really be if you think it's what you are. Hah.
Personally, I thought Weezer was cool as fuck in the '90s. I remember, oddly enough, my father thought they were pussies (which is a weird thing for my father to think, since he knows goddamn well that he is a pussy). When the Blue Album was big and I talked about it, he'd kind of scoff. Like, "Weezer? Isn't that pretty much the farthest thing from Kurt Cobain?" I eventually played him the album and he made it through exactly 1.5 songs. Made me turn it off. Too loud. ��
Pinkerton sounded good to me when it came out too. I liked it from the start. But honestly, even if they'd come back in 2001 with another natural progression in the direction of the weird, I think my adolescence was just too wrapped up in these guys for the effect to last into adulthood.
Too many songs about girls and stuff. I think the era for me has been over forever, and I can't really appreciate it beyond nostalgia for the time. Every once in a while.
Also, I don't think I really "like" Everything Will Be Alright in the End, but I don't have beef with it, I guess. I don't own it or listen to it, I just didn't turn it off after one song. If I were to listen to anything else from Green to present, I would maybe not even last one song.
I can appreciate the pocket of sub-culture within mainstream culture that they've formed though. Really, I can. They have loyal fans and they seem to get new fans all the time. They're almost like Phish in that regard. Hated by millions, but adored by a constant and ever-growing (if slowly) number of new fans. I work with some fresh out of college kids, as I've mentioned, and they're not counterculture types, but a few of them really like Weezer. They were probably not even alive when The Blue Album came out... well, possibly... I think the youngest is 23. (Feel old yet, NR?)
Anyway, you do you man. I refer you again to my unapologetic love of Nine Inch Nails, who were kinda cool in their '90s heyday, then kinda not cool when everyone started following the "underground or nah!" trend, and then kinda got cool again, then broke up, then came back, and are now elder statesman of a specific kind of purist hip culture. They were just on Twin Peaks: The Return, by the way (rocked it) and have they have also found their place at the intersection between '80s industrial nostalgia, '90s alt-rock nostalgia, "serious" cultural auteurism and the quasi-underground. That tends to happen with old favorites who simply refuse to quit.
So... good for Weezer and good for NIN (fuck You Guest
) and good for everyone who listens to what they like without giving a fuck.