Weezer and the self-titled album ‘Weezer’

Ric Ocasek of The Cars produced the self-titled debut album for the Emo / Pop/Rock band Weezer. The album Weezer, commonly is called the Blue Album for the color of album cover, collected together ten songs for a release on Tuesday, May 10, 1994. Today we celebrate the music of this album as we review each of the Blue Album‘s ten songs.

(Often called the Blue Album owing to the background color of the album cover, Weezer, also considered and Alternative/Indie Rock band, released the self-titled album Weezer on May 10, 1994).

My Name is Jonas opens Weezer‘s debut album. With lyrics inspired, at least in part, by the relationship between lead vocalist Rivers Cuomo and his brother, the website Songfacts indicates for us that “This song tells the story of brothers named Jonas and Weepel reflecting on their childhood.”

(My Name is Jonas is the opening track for Weezer‘s self-titled, debut album).

No One Else follows with a sense of obsession for a girlfriend that the singer seems to wish will be obsessed and devoted strictly to him. As a youthful expression of something that couldn’t work long term, the next song seems inevitable.

The World Has Turned and Left Me Here continues with the same jealous young man of No One Else, with this song becoming one in which the singer “wonders why she left him.” The she in both songs was a girlfriend that he mocks in No One Else while aiming to control her.

Nostalgia is on tap with the song Buddy Holly, which Rivers Cuomo saying here that the “song is about defending a platonic female friend.” The song originally was thought of as a song about the dancing of Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, yet over time moved into the song we have today with lyrics referring to musician Buddy Holly and actress Mary Tyler Moore. This song topped the charts in the United Kingdom at 12 while topping out at 18th in the United States.

(Released September 7, 1994, Buddy Holly was the second single from Weezer‘s debut album, Weezer (aka the Blue Album)).

Undone [The Sweater Song] looks into the notion of “going insane in public,” as made explicit here. That this song plays in metaphorical references was clear to me from first hearing the song. Using drums combined with an undulating musicality to open this song makes for a memorable start for the pop anthem sensibility that this song becomes. This song topped the charts in the UK at 35 while topping out at 57th in the US. Mykel Allan has a spoken intermission in this song, as Karl Koch adds dialogue and piano as the song ends.

(Undone [The Sweater Song] was released as the first single from Weezer‘s debut album on June 24, 1994).

Rivers Cuomo once called Surf Wax America “a total sarcastic call to hedonism, to sing along, drink and be merry.” In doing that here, Cuomo went on to add that he hates “drinking and only do so when I absolutely have to.”

Say It Ain’t So offers Weezer lead singer Rivers Cuomo the chance to cope with “his family frustrations.” As mentioned on the Songfacts post for the song, “Cuomo‘s family had been hurt by alcohol abuse in the past, as his father was an alcoholic and left the family when Rivers was four. When Cuomo saw the beer in the fridge, he thought his stepfather was also going to end up leaving.” The song achieved its highest success in the United Kingdom by charting 37th there.

(As the third and final single from Weezer‘s 1994 debut album, Say It Ain’t So was released as a single on July 13, 1995).

In the Garage seems to harken back to Rivers Cuomo’s teenage years, wherein he would play music in a somewhat private and safe space. The song itself includes a “fuzz bass effect…not typical of the album, but helped give the song a garage rock sound to keep with the theme.”

Holiday captures philosophical themes that “Rivers Cuomo was interested in at the time he wrote [the song] in 1993,” per Songfacts.

(From left, the musicians of Weezer initially included Patrick Wilson, Rivers Cuomo, Brian Bell and Matt Sharp).

Only in Dreams was mentioned by Rivers Cuomo in a 2006 interview as being one of the two solos for which he was “most proud of/likes the most,” as called out here. The song itself closes the album almost as an answer to the songs No One Else and The World Has Turned and Left Me Here, wherein the notion of aspiring to what comes next as a sign of uplift and healing.

Matt – Wednesday, May 4, 2022

Top 20 Movie “Pulp Fiction”

Top 20 Movie Pulp Fiction (1994) ranks 6th in Matt Lynn Digital’s Top 20 Movies in ranked order listing. The Quentin Tarantino directed and co-written film won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Tarantino and Roger Avary while garnering seven Oscar nominations in total. While Forrest Gump (1994) starring Tom Hanks was busy winning six of its thirteen Academy Award nominations, Pulp Fiction was the movie bringing true pulp fiction to the big screen with a Vintage Library definition for the genre that includes “[b]igger-than-life heroes, pretty girls, exotic places, strange and mysterious villains.” This sixth movie on our top movie listing brings four stories of stylized pulp violence intertwining with movie actor legend homages into tales of would-be redemption.

As has come to characterize many movies by Quentin Tarantino, Pulp Fiction provided a pulpy, nostalgic, retroactive sense for a filmmaking or popular culture past that Tarantino, in my opinion, looked to celebrate. The narrative lines starting with Vincent Vega as portrayed by John Travolta and Jules Winnfield as portrayed by Samuel L. Jackson are two examples, as they were working at the behest of Marsellus Wallace (played by Ving Rhames) when we first meet them.

Vincent and Jules were tasked with retrieving the briefcase and other property of Marsellus from an apartment while killing the occupants. The two banter about hamburgers and escorting Marsellus’ wife later in the movie when they eventually kill two apartment occupants while letting a man in the bathroom go unchallenged. That man comes out gun blazing at Vincent and Jules and, from the reckoning of Jules, miraculously misses the two of them while emptying the weapon of its magazine of bullets. Jules takes this as a sign that it is his time to leave the business.

Pulp Fiction 2(Jules, left, and Vincent)

These two eventually continue their back-and-forth dialogue in their vehicle when Vincent accidentally makes a mess of their car by accidentally shooting the man from the bathroom. The two head to Jules’ old pal Jimmie (as played by Tarantino). Jimmie uses his fleeting connection to Marsellus to call in a fixer to care for the situation, wherein Jules and Vincent acquire a ridiculous shorts and t-shirt outfit as a penance for the Wolf (played by Harvey Keitel) fixing the car and the deceased apartment occupant.

Pulp Fiction 3(Jimmie, left, and the Wolf)

Awash in the miracle miss from the apartment, Jules and Vincent stop for breakfast at a diner that leads to the second major story. Pumpkin (played by Tim Roth) and Honey Bunny (played by Amanda Plummer) stage a robbery with murder by gun threats and a collecting of patron wallets. Jules gets the wallets back with intimidation, though lets Pumpkin and Honey Bunny keep his money without revenge since Jules sees his life after the apartment as a sign to leave the lifestyle.

At Marsellus’ apartment, the third and fourth stories get more traction. We meet Butch Coolidge, a boxer played by Bruce Willis that Marsellus contracts to lose a fight. Bruce spars with Vincent here as Jules banters with the bartender on how Vincent must escort Mia Wallace (played by Uma Thurman) for the evening.

Pulp Fiction 4(Mia, left, and Vincent)

Dressed normally again, Vincent takes drugs (heroin) before picking up Mia for the night. Mia prepared for the evening by having taken cocaine. At a retro 1950s club, we see Steve Buscemi cameo as Buddy Holly as a lead in for Vincent and Mia stylize dancing. Mia finds and takes Vincent’s heroin, and overdoses right there in the club. Vincent gets adrenaline and revives Mia with a giant hypodermic of adrenaline. Both Mia and Vincent agree on parting company that Marsellus needs learn nothing of this.

In anticipation of his fight, we learn through flashback to an episode from Butch’s childhood that Christopher Walken as a prisoner of war had smuggled a watch back to Butch in the USA from the POW camp in Vietnam. In the present day, we see Butch knock out his opponent in the boxing ring before being comforted by his girlfriend in a prearranged motel where she waits. Marsellus, unhappy with the loss experienced at this turn, puts out a hit on Butch.

The next morning, Butch tempts fate by returning to his apartment to grab his watch. Mixed up in another apartment scene in a bathroom, Butch regains his watch and kills Vincent, who was there to kill Butch. Upon leaving, Butch literally runs into Marsellus in the street. The second chases the first into a sleazy gun shop. The two are set to be treated quite badly by the shop owner and his friend. Butch escapes, selects a samurai sword from the first floor, and comes back to rescue Marsellus by killing Zed the friend while leaving Maynard the gun ship owner for Marsellus.

Pulp Fiction 5(Marsellus, left, and Butch)

Thankful for being saved and being offered revenge for the gun shop attack, Marsellus agrees to let the boxing treachery slide if Butch leaves town. Retrieving his girlfriend on Zed’s chopper, Pulp Fiction ends with Butch as the big winner in a sea of misery as he rides off to Knoxville declaring to his girlfriend that “Zed is dead.”

Pulp Fiction 6(Butch’s girlfriend, left, and Butch)

Matt – Thursday, December 21, 2017