| Make Believe | |||||
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| Studio album by Weezer | |||||
| Released | May 10, 2005 | ||||
| Recorded | December 2003 – February 2005, at Cello Studios, Grandmaster Recorders, Henson Studios, and Rick Rubin's home studio, Los Angeles | ||||
| Genre | Alternative rock | ||||
| Length | 45:11 | ||||
| Label | Geffen | ||||
| Producer(s) | Rick Rubin | ||||
| Professional reviews | |||||
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| Metascore | 52 | ||||
| Weezer chronology | |||||
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| Singles from Make Believe | |||||
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Make Believe is Weezer's fifth studio album. It was released on May 10, 2005 to significant commercial success, receiving platinum certification in the United States, Australia, Canada, and the U.K. Despite this, the album received middling reviews from critics. The album's commercial performance was propelled by two highly successful singles, "Beverly Hills" and "Perfect Situation", the former of which remains the band's most successful single to date. The record sees songwriter Rivers Cuomo's "return to musical, emotional bloodletting"[1] (in contrast to the deliberately impersonal songwriting of The Green Album and Maladroit). Cuomo began attending Vipassana meditation courses during the production of the album, at the encouraging of producer Rick Rubin.
Songwriting for the band's fifth album began before Maladroit had even been released, with demos being recorded as early as March of 2002. In an AIM chat with Rivers Cuomo on January 8, 2002, Cuomo described the sound of Weezer's fifth album as "a combination of The Green Album and Pinkerton, if that's possible! And some Maladroit. But really it's a new different style." A number of these songs, including "The Organ Player" and "Running Man", featured a shift to third-person storytelling. These sessions also featured songs primarily written and sung by band members other than Cuomo. Ultimately, though none of the songs from these sessions would appear on the final album, some song elements were re-appropriated into new songs that would appear on Make Believe.
Following the summer of 2002, producer Rick Rubin agreed to work with the band on their next album. From September of 2002 through May of 2003, the band recorded new songs at S.I.R. Studios. Some songs that eventually appeared on Make Believe, including "Perfect Situation" and "Hold Me", were demoed as a band for the first time. However, Cuomo wasn't pleased with the music he was making.[2] Said drummer Pat Wilson, "“He didn’t believe in the music, because he didn’t believe in himself [...] Didn’t matter how many times we said, ‘That’s rad, Dude.’ There were times he was physically ill coming out of the studio." Rubin, wanting to help Cuomo, gave him a copy of The Gift, a book of poems by the fourteenth-century Sufi poet Hafez. Hafez, who wrote hundreds of ghazals about different forms of love, led Cuomo to an epiphany:
Hafiz wrote hundreds of ghazals [or love songs], finding ways to bring new depth and meaning to the lyrics without losing the accustomed association of a love song…He explored different forms and levels of love: his delight in nature’s beauty, his romantic courtship of that ideal unattainable girl, his sweet affection for his wife, his tender feelings for his child…his relationship with his teacher and his adoration of God.
I was struck by the connection between all these different forms of love. I recognized that the feeling of sublime ecstasy I once got from music was just one more of these forms of love.
I had an epiphany: if the feeling these mystics get in union with their God is analogous to the feeling I used to get in union with my music, then their teachings for how to achieve their union should likewise serve to instruct me how to achieve my union. A whole world of spiritual teachings therefore opened up to me for the first time since, as a child, I had decided that I was an “atheist”. I now read these spiritual teachings as coded instructions for how to connect with my musical creativity. For example, when Hafiz says, “Self-Effacement is the emerald dagger you need to plunge deep into yourself upon this path to …God”, I read it as “Self-Effacement is the emerald dagger you need to plunge deep into yourself upon this path to Musical Creativity.” Like this, I just replaced the word God wherever I saw it. I had discovered a new path which I believed was what I had been waiting for.
Cuomo subsequently sold his house and most of his possessions, moved into an empty apartment next to Rubin's house, and began volunteering six days a week at Project Angel Food in Hollywood, providing meals to people with HIV. Initially skeptical when Rick Rubin suggested meditation, Cuomo found himself drawn to the technique of Vipassana. Disgusted at himself for spending the past fifteen years having sex with groupies without ever being in love, Cuomo committed to a vow of celibacy for two years. Cuomo soon felt the effect of the discipline on his songwriting. One song, "Pardon Me" (Rubin's favorite) was written after Cuomo attended a meditation course in which the teacher told him to repeat over in his mind "I seek pardon from all those who have harmed me in action, speech or thought."[2] Another song, "Hold Me", was written while fasting. Cuomo was initially "vehemently opposed" when Rubin suggested meditation, "I sent him a very anxious page, saying, ‘Rick, no. I cannot get into meditation because it will rob me of the angst that’s necessary to being an artist.’ And he said, ‘OK, don’t worry about it, forget it.’ I think because he put no pressure on me, I began to get intrigued. Then I did a Tibetan-Buddhist meditation retreat. That wasn’t intense enough for me. I knew I wanted something extreme."[2]
Throughout 2003, the band began renting an office to demo new material acoustically.
Before recording Make Believe, Rick Rubin suggested that the band, which he called one of the most dysfunctional bands he's ever worked with, have sessions with a "communications coach". Pre-production demos for Make Believe were recorded in November of 2003, with proper album production beginning at Cello Studios in December. The band would ultimately be dissatisfied with these recordings, however. Cuomo began recording new demos in January of 2004. Beginning in July, the band recorded again at Grandmaster Studios. Cuomo returned to Harvard in December, with the rest of the band finishing overdubbing through October. In January, the band reconvened at Rick Rubin's studio to assess the album's status. With the band's label requesting a spring release, the band scrambled to complete the album on time, with a lot of the recording and track list decisions being made very late in production, leaving several finished songs on the cutting room floor.
During the development of Make Believe, several titles were offered both jokingly and for serious consideration.
At the video shoot for "Beverly Hills," Patrick Wilson shared with fans that both "Make Believe" and "a self-titled Red album" were being considered.
The "fallen soldiers" refers to finished recordings done during the Make Believe sessions that were ultimately left off of the album in favor of the twelve tracks that went on Make Believe.
Make Believe was released on May 10, 2005, eleven years to the day of The Blue Album. MTV demanded that the song "We Are All on Drugs" be censored before they aired the video. The song was re-dubbed with the new chorus "We Are All in Love".
Later, when "Perfect Situation" was announced as the album's third single, it was decided to remix the track with a new chorus. According to Cuomo, he had written two different versions of the chorus melody. When fans at live shows inadvertently sang it the way he originally wrote it, he realized he should change it. The new version also features backing vocals of "perfect situation" during the outros because Geffen felt the song's title wasn't repeated enough for it to be a single. "Perfect Situation" trumped "Beverly Hills" on the charts, remaining #1 for four weeks despite having no physical single release.
The first pressing of Make Believe was in a digipak and featured different mixes of several songs than later editions. There was an error on "We Are All on Drugs" on initial pressings, with the wrong bridge lyrics being used. "Perfect Situation" was remixed when it became a single. "This Is Such A Pity" was released with several different mixes across pressings.
The liner notes feature art direction by Francesca Restrepo with illustrations by Carson Ellis and photography by Sean Murphy and Karl Koch. The booklet also features a monologue from William Shakespeare's play The Tempest. The monologue is taken from Act 5, Scene 1 of the play in which Prospero gives up his magic: "This rough magic I here abjure, and, when I have required some heavenly music, which even now I do, To work mine end upon their senses that This airy charm is for, I'll break my staff, Bury it certain fathoms in the earth, And deeper than did ever plummet sound I'll drown my book."
The words "del cammin" and "vita" can also be seen hidden in the liner note illustrations, a possible reference to the opening line of Dante's Inferno, "Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita" meaning "When I had journeyed half of our life's way."[3]
The review aggregator website Metacritic assigns Make Believe an average score of 52 out of 100 based on 25 critic reviews, which remains the lowest of the band's discography.[4] Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone gave the album 4 stars out of 5, calling the songs Cuomo's "most plaintive and brilliant since Pinkerton."[5] Rob Mitchum of Pitchfork was more critical, assigning the album a rating of 0.4 out of 10, calling the album "just awful."[6] Pitchfork's Nick Sylvester also gave an individual track rating of 1 out of 5 to "Beverly Hills."[7]
| Reviewer | Rating | Review date | Author |
|---|---|---|---|
| Metacritic |    (52/100)
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Continuous | Average score of collected album reviews |
| Allmusic | (4.5/5)
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Not listed | Stephen Thomas Erlewine |
| Blender | (3/5)
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Not listed | Chris Norris |
| Dot Music | (8/10)
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May 16, 2005 | Chris Heath |
| E! Online | (B-; 67/10)
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Not listed | Not listed |
| The Guardian | (3/5)
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May 5, 2005 | Dave Simpson |
| IGN | (9.3/10)
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May 9, 2005 (updated May 19, 2012) | "JR" |
| NME | No rating given | September 12, 2005 | Ian Winwood |
| Pitchfork Media | (0.4/10)
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May 8, 2005 | Rob Mitchum |
| Rolling Stone | (4/5)
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May 19, 2005 | Rob Sheffield |
| Stylus | (D+; (33/100)
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May 13, 2005 | Charles Merwin |
| Reviewer | Rating | Review date | Author |
|---|---|---|---|
| "Beverly Hills" (Pitchfork Media) | (1.0/5)
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March 22, 2005 | Nick Sylvester (Pitchfork Media) |
Weezer's tour in support of Make Believe spanned April through December of 2005, with a co-headlining tour with the Foo Fighters throughout September and October of that year. A concert documentary, Across the Sea: Live in Japan was filmed during the band's tour of Japan.
All songs written and composed by Rivers Cuomo.
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Beverly Hills" | 3:16 |
| 2. | "Perfect Situation" | 4:15 |
| 3. | "This Is Such a Pity" | 3:24 |
| 4. | "Hold Me" | 4:22 |
| 5. | "Peace" | 3:53 |
| 6. | "We Are All on Drugs" | 3:35 |
| 7. | "The Damage in Your Heart" | 4:02 |
| 8. | "Pardon Me" | 4:15 |
| 9. | "My Best Friend" | 2:47 |
| 10. | "The Other Way" | 3:16 |
| 11. | "Freak Me Out" | 3:26 |
| 12. | "Haunt You Every Day" | 4:37 |
Total length: |
45:09 | |
All songs written and composed by Rivers Cuomo.
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Beverly Hills" | 3:16 |
| 2. | "Perfect Situation" | 4:15 |
| 3. | "This Is Such a Pity" | 3:24 |
| 4. | "Hold Me" | 4:22 |
| 5. | "Peace" | 3:53 |
| 6. | "We Are All on Drugs" | 3:35 |
| 7. | "The Damage in Your Heart" | 4:02 |
| 8. | "Pardon Me" | 4:15 |
| 9. | "My Best Friend" | 2:47 |
| 10. | "The Other Way" | 3:16 |
| 11. | "Freak Me Out" | 3:26 |
| 12. | "Haunt You Every Day" | 4:37 |
| 13. | "Butterfly (Live)" (Recorded on July 12, 2002 in Detroit, MI) | 3:57 |
| 14. | "Island in the Sun (Live)" (Recorded on July 12, 2002 in Detroit, MI) | 3:55 |
Total length: |
53:01 | |
All songs written and composed by Rivers Cuomo.
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Beverly Hills" | 3:16 |
| 2. | "Perfect Situation" | 4:15 |
| 3. | "This Is Such a Pity" | 3:24 |
| 4. | "Hold Me" | 4:22 |
| 5. | "Peace" | 3:53 |
| 6. | "We Are All on Drugs" | 3:35 |
| 7. | "The Damage in Your Heart" | 4:02 |
| 8. | "Pardon Me" | 4:15 |
| 9. | "My Best Friend" | 2:47 |
| 10. | "The Other Way" | 3:16 |
| 11. | "Freak Me Out" | 3:26 |
| 12. | "Haunt You Every Day" | 4:37 |
| 13. | "Butterfly (Live)" (Recorded on July 12, 2002 in Detroit, MI) | 3:57 |
| 14. | "Island in the Sun (Live)" (Recorded on July 12, 2002 in Detroit, MI) | 3:55 |
| 15. | "Burndt Jamb (Live)" (Recorded on July 26, 2002 in Camden, NJ) | 4:24 |
Total length: |
57:25 | |
All songs written and composed by Rivers Cuomo.
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Average Person" | |
| 2. | "We Are All on Drugs" | 3:35 |
| 3. | "I'm a Robot" | |
| 4. | "Beverly Hills" | 3:16 |
| 5. | "This Is Such a Pity" | 3:24 |
| 6. | "Freak Me Out" | 3:26 |
| 7. | "Love is the Answer" | |
| 8. | "The Damage in Your Heart" | 4:02 |
| 9. | "Outta Here" | |
| 10. | "They Are Stupid" | |
| 11. | "Last Chance" | |
| 12. | "Peace" | 3:53 |
