{"id":819182,"date":"2026-08-19T21:36:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T21:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/819182\/"},"modified":"2026-08-19T21:36:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T21:36:10","slug":"weezer-dont-have-to-fake-it-on-the-gold-album-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/819182\/","title":{"rendered":"Weezer Don’t Have to Fake It on The Gold Album: Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you told a casual fan that Weezer<\/a>\u2018s 20th LP, widely dubbed The Gold Album, features a self-referential quiet-loud rocker intentionally structured as a \u201csequel\u201d<\/a> to 1994\u2019s \u201cUndone (The Sweater Song),\u201d they might get more irritated than Leslie Jones in that Rivers Cuomo-centric SNL sketch<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cC.E.O.\u201d\u2019s concept admittedly doesn\u2019t sound great on paper: It opens with a twinkling guitar arpeggio and overdubbed background chatter, echoing that Blue Album classic, and our songwriter wastes no time getting meta: \u201cCranking out another \u201990s jam\/ Wish I could do something new,\u201d he speak-sings in the intro. \u201cBut nobody wants to hear that\/ They just want the classics\/ Can\u2019t blame \u2019em, really\/ There\u2019s something special about your early shit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Find Weezer Tickets Here<\/a><\/p>\n

The end result isn\u2019t instant classic Weezer on par with that predecessor. But it\u2019s heartening that everything about \u201cC.E.O.\u201d feels real \u2014 both in the lyrics, as Cuomo channels an artist\u2019s struggle to push forward and \u201cgive the people what they want,\u201d and in how the band mirrors that angst with an unfussy clean-to-fuzz, amps-in-the-room arrangement. It\u2019s keeper-tier Weezer not because it chases the \u201990s, but because it evokes the earnestness that made so much of the \u201cUndone\u201d era so compelling. (Plus, in Weezer world, a bridge section with a wicked, octave-layered guitar solo never hurts.)<\/p>\n

Related Video<\/p>\n

Much of The Gold Album captures a similar spirit \u2014 of Weezer looking back at their career arc, musing about keeping the show on the road. It\u2019s also their funniest, rawest, most musically spry album since at least 2014\u2019s Everything Will Be Alright in the End \u2014 even Jones\u2019 SNL character, who argued that \u201cWeezer died when Matt Sharp left,\u201d might jump back on the bandwagon.<\/p>\n

These are the kind of Big Rock Opinions that few other bands seem to spark, and it\u2019s pretty much been that way from the beginning \u2014 at least since the almighty Pinkerton, now approaching 30 years old, bloomed from mixed reviews to cult status to genuine \u201cmasterpiece\u201d praise<\/a>. Each record brings its own opportunity for a supposed redemption arc and \u201cbest since ____\u201d pull quote (see: above), but Weezer simply just keep on Weezering: surprise-hit covers (a 2018 take on Toto\u2019s \u201cAfrica\u201d), lovely orchestral-pop detours (2021\u2019s OK Human), a quadrilogy of seasonal-themed releases touching on everything from dance-rock to metal (the 2022 SZNZ project). Maybe in this scenario I\u2019m just Matt Damon\u2019s lifer-fan SNL character, but I consider most of the quartet\u2019s post-Hurley work solid to great \u2014 they\u2019ve managed to experiment with new styles while maintaining a solid song-by-song batting-average. Admirable stuff! But their latest color-coded LP scratches a deeper itch \u2014 channeling the vulnerability, hookiness, and genuine heaviness of their canonized early work.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

As usual with Weezer, you can learn a lot by studying their credits. They\u2019ve worked with a staggering amount of producers over the decades, but they seem to have struck a unique chemistry with their latest collaborators, Klas \u00c5hlund (Robyn, Charli XCX, The Weeknd) and Kenneth Blume (Geese, Idles, Vince Staples). In a press statement, Blume shared a noble objective: making \u201cthe most violent Weezer album ever.\u201d<\/a> And they got pretty damn close \u2014 a notable accomplishment, given the rapturous ruckus of Pinkerton and 2002\u2019s strangely underrated Maladroit. You feel that sheer power about 48 seconds into opener \u201cSay Yes,\u201d as feedback swells into geek-rock glory: power-chord fuzz, overdriven guitar leads, distorted bass, swaggering open-hi-hat drumming, and Cuomo\u2019s ever-youthful falsetto. As a wise Weezer fan probably said upon first encountering \u201cDope Nose\u201d or \u201cTired of Sex\u201d: Ah, yes, that\u2019s the shit. <\/p>\n

Regardless of how they got there, the end result breathes in a way most modern Weezer albums haven\u2019t \u2014 there\u2019s the occasional tape hiss, slices of in-studio chatter, some organic tempo changes, a few moments of refreshingly sloppy timing. Call it Human \u2014and OK With It. Given that warmth, it\u2019s only fitting that they mostly kept the writing in-house this time out, with Cuomo\u2019s bandmates way more involved in that part of the process: Drummer Patrick Wilson \u2014 who, it\u2019s worth reminding, co-wrote Blue classics \u201cMy Name Is Jonas,\u201d \u201cSurf Wax America,\u201d and \u201cThe World Has Turned and Left Me Here\u201d \u2014 is a clear MVP; he elevates every track with some of his most naturalistic, dynamic drumming, most notably the swaggering fills on \u201cShine Again.\u201d (In addition to that one, he wrote or co-wrote four other tracks, including a delightful roast of modern-day inconvenience called \u201cHoops,\u201d which builds to a massive fuzz swoon. Sample lyric: \u201cBought a toaster just to make some toast\/ First I had to scan a QR code\/ Where\u2019s the jerk who built this hamster wheel?\/ I\u2019m gonna tell him exactly how I feel.\u201d)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Guitarist Brian Bell also co-writes four songs \u2014 most notably \u201cWe Might as Well Be Strangers,\u201d an anthemic Cuomo duet with Wednesday\u2019s Karly Hartzman that climaxes with a heart-tugging, head-spinning rhythmic flourish. \u201cThe LA Sound,\u201d meanwhile, salutes the bonding minutiae of an eager, youthful touring band \u2014 loading up the van, navigating clubs that \u201csmell like piss,\u201d snatching the headliners\u2019 hummus plate while they aren\u2019t watching, eagerly anticipating their next opportunity to melt some faces. It peaks, of course, with some horns-up harmonized guitar work \u2014 just as it should.<\/p>\n

But these flourishes don\u2019t land as nostalgia bait. They resonate because they\u2019re lively and authentic, capturing the vibe of a great rock band leaning into being a great rock band.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t fake the real thing,\u201d they sing as \u201cThe LA Sound\u201d fades out. On The Gold Album, you can feel that they feel it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you told a casual fan that Weezer\u2018s 20th LP, widely dubbed The Gold Album, features a self-referential…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":819183,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[88,216],"class_list":["post-819182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/819182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=819182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/819182\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/819183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=819182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=819182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=819182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}