I thought you would always be my friend
But everything must end
And so the world moves on
‘Cause everything must change
And now you’re all alone
You’re sitting by the telephone
You wonder why
Everyone will cry
Tonight…
So goes the slow-build coda of “Run Away,” one of five (mostly) unqualified successes on Hurley, the new ten-song Weezer album that is, by this math, at least half fresh, maybe better. These lines are maybe the closest Rivers Cuomo has ever come to replicating the gentle touch of Daniel Johnston, though I’d like to think that Johnston would leave out the “tele-” and stick with “phone,” thereby preserving syllabic purity. Those two extra syllables aren’t a mistake, really, but the whole point of a verse like this is that the monotony of the singing phrase, where every line gets the same emphasis, implies a slow escalation of sadness and the mundane.
Weezer have been battling for access to these qualities through all these years of their non-greatness, and now, on Hurley, have partly reclaimed them. It’s fitting, then, that “Run Away” begins not with layers of studio sheen, but in lo-fi home recording mode, an approach that somehow transforms Cuomo, instantly, into a beautiful, troubled soul (see his solo compilations Alone and Alone II). There’s a weird innocence on even the most radio-ready songs (I swear he sings “I’m frickin’ bored” [my emphasis] on opener “Memories”), but Cuomo becomes the misfit savant of purity most effectively when the production doesn’t try to turn his oft-Johnstonian whims and reflections into “pop songs for the average young adult.” I’m no psychologist, and I’m not trying to uncover who Cuomo and Johnston actually “are,” but as for the “characters” they appear as within their songs, modesty serves them best.
That said, of the other four successes, two follow this sort of home recording feeling, and the other two are big, soaring numbers that just have an indomitable peppiness. In the former camp, “Unspoken” begins with bleary woodwind synths and acoustic guitar, but then doesn’t lose its emotional directness amid the onset of expensively manufactured, and rad, crunch. Its mixed tempo sing-song climax hearkens back to, but doesn’t surpass, a similar moment, long ago, on the great “Holiday.” “Time Flies” stays lo-fi through to the end, and its swirl of distorted guitar and bass drum thump is so good that Cuomo is able to pass off an endlessly unfolding web of clichés. In the peppy camp, “Ruling Me” features a classic Weezer melody (think “No One Else”) and a fine vocal from Cuomo in which he sometimes wrangles himself into the strained high registers of They Might Be Giants’ John Linnell (reaching a peak on the word “nerve,” appropriately). “Hang On,” with its heaven-sent power pop chime-in backing vocals on the chorus, and heavy-footed stomp, is insatiable.
Because songs like these are actually very good (and maybe for no other reason), Hurley has been dubbed a return to form, of sorts, and its missteps sound especially bad in relation to their Pinkerton analogues. “Where’s My Sex?” has been misunderstood as one of those songs whose titular homophony is supposed to give the words two simultaneous meanings, but the lyrics (with the exception of the great line “sex making is a family tradition”) are too boring to even count as wordplay. If the song is intended as a confessional update of “Tired of Sex,” well, it’s not, and what I spoke of as Cuomo’s “innocence” translates here to timidity. “Smart Girls” are the new lesbians, it seems, but 14 years after the classic “Pink Triangle,” Cuomo is no longer able to write touchingly, or even hormonally, about a group of people he doesn’t understand. “Trainwrecks” doesn’t smack of anything, really, its bland and unspecific rebelliousness (“We’re still kicking ass”) and oversaturated, faux-epic choruses simply hinting that the band’s move from the majors to Epitaph Records has been too little, too late.
But then “Unspoken” comes along, and it’s so very sweet, and I’m such an optimist, always letting beauty erase its former dearth, that I have to give Hurley fairly high marks.
