Allmusic

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Allmusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than 3 million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musical artists and bands. Initiated in 1991, the database was first made available on the Internet in 1994. It has reviewed every release in Weezer's discography, often quite favorably. It has notably defied the trend of critical disdain that Weezer's 21st century records have been met with, rewarding many of their later albums with high marks. Its most prolific critic, Stephen Thomas Erlewine, has reviewed almost every one of Weezer's studio albums for the site - Matt Collar reviewed Raditude.

Reviews

Albums

Release Rating Author Excerpt "Track Picks"
The Blue Album (1994)
Weezer The Blue Album.jpg
5/5 stars5/5 stars5/5 stars5/5 stars5/5 stars (5/5) Stephen Thomas Erlewine "Weezer is a record with at least six or seven great songs and no bad ones. That makes for a great record, but more than that, it's a great record emblematic of its time, standing as one of the defining albums of the '90s."

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Pinkerton (1996)
Weezer Pinkerton.jpg
5/5 stars5/5 stars5/5 stars5/5 stars5/5 stars (5/5) Stephen Thomas Erlewine "...the band's endearing geekiness isn't as cutesy as before, which means the album wasn't as successful on the charts. But it's the better album, full of crunching power pop with a surprisingly strong emotional undercurrent that becomes all the more resonant with each play."

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The Green Album (2001)
Weezer The Green Album.jpg
4.5/5 stars4.5/5 stars4.5/5 stars4.5/5 stars4.5/5 stars (4.5/5) Stephen Thomas Erlewine Especially since this is a conscious return to the band's debut, this may seem like nothing special -- it's just punk-pop, delivered without much dynamic range but with a whole lot of hooks -- but nobody else does it this well, no matter how many bands try."
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Maladroit (2002)
Weezer Maladroit.jpg
4/5 stars4/5 stars4/5 stars4/5 stars4/5 stars (4/5) Stephen Thomas Erlewine "So, it's essentially a harder-rocking version of the last album. But you know what? It doesn't matter because the band is at a peak."
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Make Believe (2005)
Weezer Make Believe.jpg
5.5/5 stars5.5/5 stars5.5/5 stars5.5/5 stars5.5/5 stars5.5/5 stars (4.5/5) Stephen Thomas Erlewine It might not be what Weezer fans want, but... Cuomo never cared much about that in the first place. If they're not immediately taken with Make Believe, give it time. After all, Pinkerton didn't win fans immediately."

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The Red Album (2008)
Weezer The Red Album.jpg
4.5/5 stars4.5/5 stars4.5/5 stars4.5/5 stars4.5/5 stars (4.5/5) Stephen Thomas Erlewine "This isn't a radical sonic makeover -- ever a pop formalist, Rivers has Weezer stick to their signatures of big guitars and bigger hooks -- but rather a question of attitude, as Cuomo loosens up as he stares down his impending middle age, choosing to get silly rather than serious."
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Raditude (2009)
Weezer Raditude.jpg
3.5/5 stars3.5/5 stars3.5/5 stars3.5/5 stars3.5/5 stars (3.5/5) Matt Collar "If Weezer's 2008 eponymous Red Album was all about singer/songwriter Rivers Cuomo coming to terms with heading into middle age, then 2009's Raditude finds Cuomo looking back upon his own carefree, dirt bike-riding youth and writing songs about it, but filtered through the eyes of Weezer's younger fans."
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Songs

Release Rating Author Excerpt
"Buddy Holly" (1994)
BuddyHolly(USA).jpg
5/5 stars5/5 stars5/5 stars5/5 stars5/5 stars (5/5) Stewart Mason "The most immediately infectious song on Weezer's debut album (as well as their biggest hit, thanks in no small part to Spike Jonze's hilarious and inventive video, which inserted the band into an episode of Happy Days), "Buddy Holly" is short, brash, incredibly catchy, and utterly charming."

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"Say It Ain't So" (1995)
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5/5 stars5/5 stars5/5 stars5/5 stars5/5 stars (5/5) Tom Maginnis "The track has all the ingredients of a great song: crisp production, subtle verses, and head-smacking choruses that are both tuneful and poignant. Though singer/songwriter Rivers Cuomo's usually esoteric lyrics are in evidence here, one can sense that the song carries the emotional weight of bittersweet childhood memories."

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"Undone - The Sweater Song" (1995)
TheSweaterSong.jpg
5/5 stars5/5 stars5/5 stars5/5 stars5/5 stars (5/5) Tom Maginnis It's the arrangement's brilliant use of dynamics and the sonic punch of the thick distorted guitars in the chorus, courtesy of producer Ric Ocasek, that power the recording and drive the melody home. The free association of the verses not only provides a perfect backdrop for the befuddled party outcast ("Oh no, it go/It gone, bye-bye/Who I, I think/I sink, and I die"), it sets up the expert vocal harmonies that float above the raging guitars of the chorus, giving the entire track a serene power."
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Band biography

See Allmusic Weezer biography

Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote and maintains Allmusic's Weezer biography.

See also

External links