alternative rock

What’s With These Homies Dissin’ My Girl?

May 7, 2018 — 2 Comments

In the Earbuds: the Blue Album by Weezer

A quintessential album from the 90s.  No discussion of 90’s alternative music could be complete if it doesn’t include Weezer’s self-titled mono-colored debut album from 1994.  Front man and lead songwriter Rivers Cuomo swirled together his loves for Kiss, Slayer, Nirvana’s Nevermind (1991), and apparently the Cars (producer Ric Ocasek’s band) to write these hard rocking gems with great pop hooks.

The single “Buddy Holly” sounds like a poseur using hip hop lingo with a 50’s bebop feel to tell the tale of a young man bemoaning how his girl is getting “dissed.” Here is my humble tribute:

The debut single “Undone (The Sweater Song)” uses grunge to chronicle a relationship unravelling – and Cuomo later admitted that he accidentally ripped off Metallica’s “Sanitarium”. The heavy-chorused “Say It Ain’t So” gets real, talking about the destruction of alcoholism in the family. One of my favorites, “Holiday,” has that classic 3/4 time doo-wop beat underneath an anthemic chorus and sings about getting away from it all, complete with a Jack Kerouac reference. “In the Garage” describes a late-adolescent inner sanctum where he can find refuge from teenage ills.

The influence this album had on a generation of shoe-gazing awkward teenagers (including those that would go on to form emo bands) is inestimable. Please do yourself a favor and get a copy of the Blue album. From there you can move on to the other colors of the Weezer rainbow: Green, Red, and White.

Matt’s Museletter: Now With 100% More FUN!

April 28, 2018

In the Earbuds: 100% Fun by Matthew Sweet

Rarely has there been an album title that better describes the contents. Matthew Sweet’s 100% Fun is a classic 90s guitar pop album, brimming over with head-bobbing catchiness.

There is something sublime to me about the lead track and radio hit, “Sick of Myself” – something about the catchy melody, bare-bones garage rock, and the grungy power chords perfectly aligns to make it one of my favorite songs ever. I can’t really explain it. The manic, zany guitar soloing causes facial ignition. The ending is really a pseudo-ending – just when you think it’s over (and maybe the band in the studio really thought it was over), Sweet starts it back up again. And again.

Here is my tribute to Sick of Myself:

Producer Brendan O’Brien brought some alternative rock heaviness to the album, especially on songs like Super Baby, Giving It Back, and Lost My Mind. While Sweet loves to rock, he primarily wants to craft personal, emotive songs, and this is apparent on the calmer ballads I Almost Forgot and Fog Moon. Sure, there’s a time to vent our angst and frustration with life as on O’Brien’s other producing work from that era: Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Rage Against the Machine, etc. Thanks, though, to Matthew Sweet for having some fun. In the middle of the alternative/grunge age of despair, he found a moment of brightness.