Listening to their debut a lot recently, it is easy to see why Weezer’s latest album Raditude falls flat, and it is not just the silly title (almost as silly are some of the song titles I’m Your Daddy and The Girl Got Hot). With all its geek tendencies the original Weezer just rocked with shredworthy licks throughout every song while most of Raditude, the guitars are just blended into an overproduced wall of sound. Their first album was chalk full of songs that were sing-a-long-worthy even after one listen, whereas on the latest Rivers Cuomo’s voice is also victim of the overproduction and just fades into the music.
As embarrassing as some of the song titles are, there are some songs on the disks that are even more cringeworthy. The Polow da Don produced (yes you read that right) Can’t Stop Partying featuring Lil’ Wayne (“It’s Weezer and it’s Weezy, it’s upside-down MTV,” seriously) sounds like a darker version of Beverly Hills after Cuomo got accepted by the culture. Hearing Cuomo talking about homies a decade and a half ago was quirky; hearing the forty year old version do so on Let it All Hang Out is just corny. Then there is Indian influenced Love Is the Answer which is just too tree hugging hippieish for a Weezer song. I don’t know if they were trying to make a U2 song, but whatever the case, it fails miserably.
There are some sparkles of hope on the disk; Put Me Back Together is classic Weezer, from the love gone wrong lyrics to the guitar feedback that ends the track. Trippin’ Down the Freeway bounces along in typical Weezer fashion with Rivers sounding like Billy Joe Armstrong of Green Day at certain points of the song. And first single (If You’re Wondering if I Want You To) I Want You To may be the greatest Cheap Trick song they never wrote. But that isn’t enough to save a lackluster album.
A strange thing happened while compiling this year’s worst songs list: I actually had a hard time coming up with forty songs. Usually I can easily come up with a list off the top of my head. I am not sure if it was because there actually didn’t release as many bad songs as usual this year or if I was able to avoid them better this year. But in the end I was actually able to come up with the usual forty to signify the death of Top 40 radio. Here are the songs that made my ears bleed the last three hundred and sixty-five days. Wait, sixty-six, it was leap year. And don’t forget the extra second they are tacking onto the end of this year.
I have this friend who is a master at the single entendre. And of course he always finishes with the obligatory "If you know what I mean." And, sadly, I always do. Now this phrase has seeped into one of the worst pop song in recent memory, Destiny's Child's Soldier. Now I was totally on the Destiny's Child bandwagon circa the Survivor era. During my Best Songs of 2001 countdown DC charted 3 times (Bootylicious - #6; Survivor - #8; Emotions - #43) and Beyoncé has made my countdown in recent years by herself. But Soldier is just bad on so many levels. First of which is the previously mentioned, "... if you know what I mean." And in the song it preceded by, "Known to carry big things..." As much as I don't want to, sadly I know what they mean. But there are things they talk about that I don't know what they mean. Like, "He knows how to split the money three ways." What do they mean by that? Does that mean the three girls get the money while the guy gets none? It makes no logical sense.
Then there are the rappers. First up you have T.I. whom for some reason thinks he is hard. I have no respect for a rapper who claims he's hard but when it comes down to it I could beat him in a fight. The guy even wears his hats like Antoine Merriwether of "Men on Film" fame. Then there is Lil' Wayne, who already violates one of my rules for rapper stating that all rappers with Lil' in their names suck massively (i.e. Lil' Bow Wow, Lil' Kim, Lil' Romeo and so on). Then to make thing worse, the Lil' one raps "Cash Money is an army. I'm walking with purple hearts on me." Um, does he not realize that there is real war going on right now where real soldier are earning purple hearts, not just rapping about it in a corny pop song? I doubt Lil' Wayne or the Antoine Merriwether wannabe could last one day as a real soldier.
There is another song that as might as well have a "if you know what I mean" in it, 50 Cent's Candy Shop. The line in question is, "I'll let you lick the lollipop." Or, "I'll melt in your mouth not in your hand." How sophomoric. Is this the same guy how wrote the eternally clever How to Rob? Of course that was back in the "Bashing Ja Rule" days. Unfortunately 50 has slowly become Ja Rule. Have a female R&B artist sing your hooks - check. Tell the female singer to "keep it between me and you" - check. Run with a talent less crew - check. Appeal to fourteen year old white girls - check. It's about time to have an intervention for 50 before he does a video based on a musical ala Mesmerized or worse a duet with Jennifer Lopez.
![Terror Alert Level: Guarded [BLUE]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzCbHfExiuXqojow1zxkBUX6j-9BHg9IyrfzqR77jnja2Xq6dbv-7iiqMFzp_UKXGcUF9FyAHqCkNxa5uitXa5Xu2Q1OboN9-TLjsaeI1a2eoGLORU4vkTQ54l1C-_cZyn81QHyQ/s400/small_guarded.png)
on my Terror Alert Scale.
