Another Form of Relief

A few years ago Weezer were just about my favourite band. They were certainly the first band that I took an almost obsessive liking to anyway. This led me to collecting pretty much every song they ever recorded, included every demo and unreleased song. This was done largely because a few years ago they would put new songs up on their website on an almost daily basis. It was an interesting way to watch the evolution of the band. Unfortunately, then they dumped most of them and proceeded to release shit like Maladroit and Make Believe.

There were a large number of really very good songs during that period though, and I’ve collected the best of them for this two-part series of posts. I would have put them all in one, but 16 songs at once seems a little excessive, and means I don’t have to write so much in one go. These songs aren’t in any kind of arranged order beyond alphabetical, largely because I can’t remember when a lot of them date from. Most are just demo versions of songs, meaning they aren’t fully mastered, but they are still a good indication of what might have been.

MP3 Weezer - 367 (expired)
‘367′ was one of the album 5 demo songs that got dumped back in late 2004. I don’t know if ‘367′ was to be the finished song, or whether it was just the number of the song, seeing as every song is numbered and 367 would be about where they were up to at this point. It’s notable for it’s use of piano (way) in the background, something that will crop up on more than one of these songs.

MP3 Weezer - Ain’t Got Much Time (expired)
This is the song that closest matches the style of “current” Weezer, meaning it’s weaker than most of the ones here, but as current Weezer goes, it’s actually pretty good. The lyrics are pretty dumb and simplistic, but it’s short and manages to rock pretty well in the meantime.

MP3 Weezer - Blast Off (expired)
‘Blast Off’ is probably the oldest song here, dating from around 1995. After ‘The Blue Album’, Rivers’ intent was to release a “space rock opera” concept album, entitled ‘Songs From The Black Hole’. This fell through and eventually turned into ‘Pinkerton’, and only ‘Tired Of Sex’ and ‘Getchoo’ survived the transition. A few of the other songs, like ‘Devotion’ and ‘I Just Threw Out The Love Of My Dreams’ eventually surfaced on other releases, but most of the songs never saw the light of day. ‘Blast Off’ would have been one of the earliest tracks on the album, setting the style for what was to come. It’s a conversation between the four human occupants of a spaceship, and their robot travelling companion. Which may sound pretty weird, but it’s strangely addictive. Unfortunately the mp3 has rough cuts at the start and finish of the song, as this is where it would have merged straight into the other songs.

MP3 Weezer - Booby Trap (expired)
‘Booby Trap’ is from the period where Rivers wrote pretty simplistic songs, but it’s one of the better ones to fall into this category. And there’s something oddly enjoyable about Rivers asking “am I just going mental?” over and over.

MP3 Weezer - Comin’ Home (Left My Broken Heart In Carolina) (expired)
The strangest song here, and unfortunately I can’t remember any story behind it. I remember it being posted to the website out of the blue with a couple of other “unique” sounding songs, but nothing more ever seemed to come of any of them. I’m inclined to think it was a joke more than anything else, but it’s certainly amusing. I really don’t have the words to describe it, but if I didn’t know it was Weezer, I probably wouldn’t believe it if someone told me that was the case. It’s just downright bizarre, although any rock band who can feature whistling in their songs gets a thumbs up from me.

MP3 Weezer - Lullaby (expired)
More piano goodness to be found on this one. Another one of the album 5 demo recordings than never made it any further. Which is quite a shame as it’s a really nice song.

MP3 Weezer - Misstep (expired)
An absolutely insane song, with guitar work that sounds like it just stumbled in from the big rock era of the 80s. Trying to keep up with the lyrics is pretty much a lost cause, so it’s not hard to see why the song was abandoned, but I still find it to be a lot of fun.

MP3 Weezer - Mo Beats (expired)
The first song where Rivers seemed to get vocally pissed at the press (and the fans?) for their constant negativity about recent Weezer material. It isn’t exactly the greatest of comebacks (”Now to my challengers / Still think with little words / You’re so upset you’re pissing on yourself”), but the sound of the song makes it unique enough for me to post it here. I think this may have been Rivers’ first dabble in the rap-rock genre, but I’m not too sure.

Well that’s the first batch of songs covered then. I’ll be back with the second set in a day or two. I actually think that the second batch is a stronger set of songs overall, although all of them are an interesting way of filling in the big gaps between old and new Weezer.

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