Weezer (The Red Album): Difference between revisions

Shortly after Weezer's last ''Make Believe'' tour,  Rivers Cuomo returned to Harvard to finish a degree in English.  Pat, meanwhile, set out to work on [[The Special Goodness]] (having scrapped sessions he did a year earlier with Scott Shriner).  Brian Bell set out on a brand new project called [[The Relationship]].  With all four members of Weezer off pursuing different things, little was spoken of on the Weezer front.  In June of 2006, Rivers married [[Kyoko Ito]] and the two honeymooned in Japan.  While in Japan, Rivers did an interview with MTV.  The article was finally published and its selling point was that Weezer had broken up.  Despite Rivers never saying "Weezer have broken up", he did say, "Really, for the moment, we are done. And I'm not certain we'll ever make a record again, unless it becomes really obvious to me that we need to do one."  Rivers would later admit that he was peeved to have to do an interview on his honeymoon.  Additionally, the interviewer was new.  Still, the damage was done, and even well into 2008 many people were under the impression that Weezer had broken up.  The band was quick to dismiss the breakup rumors on .com, where Karl posted a picture of Rivers, Brian and Scott sitting around the table.

In April of 2007, Weezer fans were treated to their first bit of new material in nearly two years when the song "[[Pig]]" leaked as an acoustic home demo on music blogs.  It is still entirely unknown how the song managed to get out, but Karl did post a link to the song briefly on Karl's Corner.  It is unknown why the link was taken down hours later.  The metadata for the track revealed it was a twelve track album entitled ''[[Deliverance at Hand!]]''.  Nothing related to ''Deliverance at Hand!'' would be spoken of, or known of, for another year. Around this time, a mysterious website entitled [[Albumsix]] popped up with an image saying "Album 6" that redirected to the official website.  At the time, Karl was rather unaware of Weezer happenings and truthfully reported that he had "no idea what this albumsix stuff is about".  Also around the time, Rivers wrote a letter on the official website stating that recording for the new Weezer album would begin shortly.  Eventually, Albumsix turned into a fake album called ''[[Tout Ensemble]]'', which many major news outlets picked up on.  Karl was forced to write the statement: "Please note that Weezer and Geffen Records have no affiliation with www.albumsix.com. The new Weezer record is not called Tout Ensemble and there is no official release date yet for the album. Remember, when it's on Weezer.com, it's for sure. (Though I will say, 'well played', to the authors of that site.)"

The Red Album marks many firsts in Weezer's career both in writing and writers.  In the [[Alone]] booklet, Rivers wrote on the commentary for "[[This Is the Way]]" that he had written a symphonic art minute song called "Daydreamer".  This, along with comments of "darker" subject matter, and the previously leaked "Pig", hinted to a new Weezer sound.  Most songs were penned by Rivers, but additional songs were penned by Brian, Pat and Scott.  Brian Bell's song [[Thought I Knew]] was a reworked [[Relationship]] demo of his.  Pat's [[Automatic]] was a song once considered to be a [[The Special Goodness]] tune before Rivers showed such enthusiasm for it that it was converted into a Weezer song.  Scott's [[Cold Dark World]] was a bass riff he often played to warm up.  The band was so enthusiastic about it that they helped him turn it into a full song.  Rivers then wrote the lyrics.  Additionally, Rivers himself was writing songs from a new standpoint.  In an interview shortly before Red's release, Rivers stated that being married helped him feel more comfortable about his own writing.  He began writing from different perspectives.  Among these are included a pig (on "Pig"), a cocky guy (on "King", "Greatest Man") and a teenager; for the first time Rivers was incorporating several of his actual youth experiences into songs that were narrative without being girl related ("Troublemaker", "Everybody Get Dangerous").  Besides experimental lyrical content, Red's song structures are new firsts for Weezer.  "Dreamin'" is the first Weezer song to be released since "Susanne" to begin with a chorus.  "The Angel and the One", "Pig" and "The Spider" have no traditional verses, choruses or bridges.  Rather, they are a stream of consciousness similar to writing styles by Jack Kerouac (whom Rivers is influenced by).  "Miss Sweeney" contains a very different verse style from any Weezer song, which Rivers hinted at in interviews (he referred to it as "southern rap").  Also, Sweeney was co-written with Sarah C. Kim (The band's personal assistant).  It is the only Weezer album to have no solos from Rivers Cuomo.

Weezer's new album sessions began shortly after Rick Rubin received a copy of ''Deliverance at Hand!'' in Spring 2007. The material was somewhat more experimental than anything Weezer had previously done.  At the beginning of the album's creation each Weezer member asked themselves what they wanted to get out of the album. With that in mind, they set out to record. Recording was done in three sessions. Half of the album was recorded during the Spring of 2007 with Rick Rubin overseeing production.  Interestingly, Rick was far less involved with the album than he was in ''Make Believe''.  It is uncertain if the band had a falling out, but the band did comment later that he "just sort of stopped showing".  Weezer went on to finish the production of the album themselves in a second recording studio.  Finding themselves with an abundance of experimental (by Weezer standards) material, Geffen told Weezer that the album lagged and was too slow.  This forced Weezer to enter into a third session in which two new songs were recorded with [[Jacknife Lee]]: "[[Troublemaker]]" and "[[Pork and Beans]]".

==Red Album is Released==

Rivers posted on his official MySpace blog that the new single was a 12 letter word starting with T and ending with R.  Fans quickly set out making lists of possible names.  It was assumed the song was called "Troublemaker", although some speculated it was "Tranquilizer".  Later, Rivers published on his MySpace blog that he was wrong about the first single, and that it would now be a song about a "four legged pink farm animal".  He then said "you ain't gonna figure it out boy!!"  Most fans assumed Rivers was referring to Pig and that his latter statement was a sarcastic comment that it was obviously Pig.  On the Albumsix forums, fans questioned Karl about Pig's recording and Karl simply stated "I for one would be extremely surprised if Pig was the first single."  He also stated, "I know Pig was recorded, but I'm not sure how far along it got..."

''Weezer (The Red Album)'' was released on June 3 in two available versions: standard and deluxe.  The standard edition of Red contained 10 tracks, a throwback to the roots of Weezer. The deluxe edition contained four bonus tracks that were completely recorded, but omitted from the final tracklist for reasons relating to preference of the band and Geffen. The standard edition was a jewelcase; the deluxe edition was a digipak which also contained a lyric booklet with band commentary. ''The Red Album'' will be among the first batch of albums released on a new music format called "slotMusic" in late 2008.

To promote Red, the band began releasing [[Webisodes]] on their official YouTube page, as well as on the band's media page.  Also, Fans who pre-ordered the album through iTunes were treated to a ticket presale as well as exclusive bonus tracks of "[[It's Easy]]" and "[[I Can Love]]" (both of which are from 2003's earliest ''[[Make Believe]]'' demos).  Fans who pre-ordered the album through exclusive online outlets received a free promo Pork and Beans 7" containing the B-side "[[Are Friends Electric?]] (Gary Numan cover)" as well as a free Red Album poster and a red stop sign sticker with the [[Flying W|flying w]].

In promotion of the album, Weezer toured with Tokyo Police Club and Angels and Airwaves in North American and played shows in Japan as well. [[The Relationship]] opened for three shows. [[Hootenanny|Hootenannies]] were incorporated into the concerts for performances of [[Beverly Hills]] and [[Island in the Sun]].

Red received fairly mixed reviews.  It is one of the more polarizing records in Weezer's career for both fans and critics.  Some fans consider Red a huge improvement from the three immediate records preceding it, others consider it more enjoyable than ''[[Pinkerton]]'', and some consider it Weezer's worst effort by far.