Weezer’s “Green Album”: A Demonstration of Musical Rebirth

Rebirth is a common theme throughout human history. Fear of death and the unknown prompt the human mind to believe in the ability to continue on in life. Most cultures acknowledge some kind of soul, spirit, essence, or shade of oneself that will continue to exist after the heart stops beating. Christianity believes in resurrection, and Hinduism believes in reincarnation. The ancient Greeks wrote of a bird that could recreate itself, even though it went down in a fiery death. This bird was called the phoenix, and its image is synonymous with the idea of rebirth.

In 1996, a band called Weezer released their second album, entitled Pinkerton. It was a statement by singer/guitarist/songwriter Rivers Cuomo of the difficulties of the life he had begun since his first album, Weezer (henceforth referred to as The Blue Album) went double platinum, won numerous awards, and sent his words into the heads of teens across the world. For a shy and introverted kid from Massachusetts, this was quite a lot to handle. But Cuomo was proud of his art, and he wanted it to be heard.

It can only be imagined, then, the crushing blow that was Pinkerton. The band released the album in 1996 to mediocre sales and far worse reviews. An abrasively personal album, Pinkerton took all the guts Rivers could work up to record and release. Virtually all of Weezer’s fans started to wonder why their happy, funny favorite band would release something that sounded so gritty and mean. All the fans who wanted another "Sweater Song" were unprepared to hear Rivers' confessions of alienation and the impersonal life a new rock star is forced to lead. They wanted the next big radio hit...and that wasn't what Pinkerton was about. With slow sales, the album eventually reached gold status, but not before being lambasted as the worst album of 1996 by Rolling Stone magazine.

So what is a man so scorned to do? Go into semi-retirement for four years. Imagine being riddled with all the insecurities we hear of on Pinkerton, building up the guts to expose them, and then being shot down completely. Rivers was done. The fire of emotion had incinerated his confidence in his skills and his band.

But the music wasn't done with him. Rivers started his career as an artist who could take a simple chord riff (if you want to disagree, listen to the Blue Album. Four-chord wonders) and relatively unimportant lyrics ("Oh no, it go, it gone, bye-bye," warbles “Undone”) and transform them, with a pop-rock gift, into something catchy and nearly universally appealing. That gift was evident on Pinkerton, but the world wasn’t ready for the development of Cuomo’s gifts. He still felt the music in him, but now the fans had spoken—they didn’t want blatant insecurity, they wanted something fun.

Thus the birth of the Green Album. Rivers wasn't selling out, he was just hiding his fears a little better, just as he did on the Blue Album. He still breached subjects in his life like drug use, rejection, and fears, but he also showed that he wasn't the depressed self-absorbed artist that he supposed Pinkerton demonstrated. He could recognize the goodness of life, the fun that it contains, and showed that in a simple album.

Green is the phoenix of Weezer. The band flew high in Blue, burned itself to the ground in a fire of emotion and intimate pain in Pinkerton, and recreated itself from its original roots with Green.

The songs are simple; the chord structures are unremarkable; the guitar solos are simply melodic paraphrase. But Green represents what Weezer was built around and what they were best at—a catchy, fun, and interesting sound.

One critic suggested that the timing of Green came as it did (five years after Pinkerton) because Rivers recognized that people were actually listening. The band did test the waters for a while, booking themselves on the Warped tour, and, to their surprise, being the hit of the tour. People did still care. And what’s more, a new generation had begun to recognize the greatness of Pinkerton. Assured that someone was listening, Rivers was comfortable releasing a new, though toned down, album.

The need to be heard is evident from Green’s opening track, in which Rivers, pleading to a lover (and to his fans) sings:

Anything you desire, I will set at your feet…

But if there comes a day
You should turn your heart away
I’ll be down on my knees
Begging for that girl [my fans?] to stay.

Don’t let go!

Rivers, though shy and awkward, needed to be loved and to be heard, and was willing to do what his fans asked to achieve that. That is the basic motive behind the structure of the songs on Green. Everything about it is indicative of the original Blue Album, from the eponymous title (suggesting starting again) to the cover art of the band members in front of a solid color background. But the difference was that this color was brighter, this band was stylish and sharp (note River’s much sharper ensemble than the grunge t-shirt of Blue), and they weren’t just looking forward; they were looking up. This could be interpreted as a number of gestures: it could be to display that the band is now more upbeat and “looking up” than the dark Pinkerton; it could be looking to the future; perhaps, even, the band looks a little bit pleading, asking fans to return.

The album’s lyrics tend toward an apologetic and contrite Rivers asking those he loves to come back to him and work with what he has. In typical Weezer style, most of these pleas are, of course, to an unimpressed girlfriend. But the attitude of asking for one more chance permeates the album. The album, as stated by “Knock-Down, Drag-Out,” is “all that I can do right now to make it up to you somehow.”

“Kick it on back to what you know, give me some love…on the hard rock radio” pleads a man who was once on the top of the radio, asking to get there again, not asking “give me some money,” but “give me some love.” For Rivers, being heard and appreciated for his music is being loved—exactly what all timid geeks (which Rivers claims to be) are looking for.

The song “Photograph” is the great summation of River’s career to this point:

If you blew it [with Pinkerton]
Don’t reject it [my music or the music business]
Just keep drawing up the plans [the songs] and re-erect it.

With this, he acknowledges the self-destructive nature of Pinkerton, but says that it’s not over. The band has been re-erected and made all over again. The phoenix has been reborn, and in the case of Weezer, it's a bit shallower, but it’s catchier than ever.