Hurley - Weezer Review

Story by Jacob Fricke 

| Published Sep 21, 2010

Let’s all have a moment of silence for Rivers Cuomo. The Weezer frontman and lead songwriter never really got his due back in 2001, when he died and was replaced by a sound-alike that simply doesn’t have his talent.
At least, I assume Cuomo is dead. After all, the same genius who meticulously crafted the self titled “Blue Album”, “Green Album”and “Pinkerton” can’t possibly have any affiliation with the train wreck that is “Hurley.”
Over the past two decades, Weezer has given the world arguably the best pop rock music ever. “Hurley” features none of it. Instead, we are presented with a band deliberately pushing its’ fans to the limit of their endurance.
Once you’ve heard lead single “Memories,” there is little reason to delve into the rest of the album. It features forgettable lyrics and a synth-soaked chorus. This formula is copied for the rest of the songs on the album, save the token acoustic ballad.
Lyrically, Cuomo has descended from clever and witty into cliched and pathetic. “We” and “us” is omnipresent, and the people referenced always seem to be having relationship problems. Ultimately, the lyrics are interchangeable between songs.
For a decade, Weezer was a king of the alternative rock world. Now, they are sad imitations of themselves. If it was their plan to deliberately destroy their own fame, they were successful. If it truly was the sad decline the public witnessed, one has to wonder where they went wrong.