Reeg Speak

Music Review:
Weezer - Make Believe

Let me start this off with an anecdote. Back in my thuggin' days, I was purely a hip-hop head, circa 1994. I'd either listen to that gangsta ish coming out of the slums or Illmatic and Doggystyle on my broke walkman that had a rubberband around it. Shoot, it shouldn't even be called a walkman - crippledman would be more accurate. The thing juiced batteries like it was on 'roids. It wasn't until '95 when I upgraded to a discman and I haven't looked back. Hmmm, ten years...maybe it is time for the iPizzle?

Anyway, back to the story. So I'm all G'd up and my brother is going through his first year at Stanford. He was always a lil different than the rest of us Tacordas (I mean, he only has like 1 pair of Nikes...wtf??) and his musical selection was also nonconforming. I swear he was the biggest 10,000 Maniacs fan ever, or so I thought. Anyway, one day I see this cd with these 4 white nerds on the cover with a plain blue background. I'm like, damn - college changes a brother. They're scrubs! I mean, at least get contacts or something. One song he kept playing was "If you want to destroy my sweater!" (the sweater song). Who the freak makes a song about destroying a sweater?? I still don't know if the sweater was an extended metaphor for something. Judging from the album cover, whomever destroyed their sweater was doing them a favor! Definitely not my cup of tea. Besides, at the time, I wasn't a big fan of tea anyway.

But deep down inside, I really liked the other joints on there. When no one was home, I used to listen to it on the under. It was almost like music porn. You know, you don't wanna get caught. "Buddy Holly" is dope, especially the video. "Surf Wax America" made me wanna learn to surf and actually still does. "No One Else" and all the other songs are still dope. How can you not sing along to "My girl got eye-balls, in the back of her head!" I took a hiatus from this album until my senior year of college, when all them songs were on my first alternative mix, including the infamous sweater song. This actually culminated into "borrowing" the cd from my bro, and of course I have yet to return it, so he actually told me to keep it. Thanks mayn.

Oh yeah, I meant to write about their joint that dropped yesterday. Its a solid release as there's nothing really bad but conversely nothing as good as "The Good Life" (my fav Weezer song ever). As artists get tenure and release multiple albums, its kind of hard to match expectations. Side A is a lil slow but Side B picks up the album. Remember old album reviews that always compared the sides of a tape? I'm going retro with that.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 Sweaters.

Song of the Day:

one more dream
vanished up in smoke
now i have no hope
anymore
let it go
the damage in your heart
let it go
the damage in your heart
i can't tell you how you want to make me feel

Weezer - "The Damage in your Heart"

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