Posts tagged Weezer

I’m not usually a fan of mega-post style content, but seeing as this is our first official posting with proper hosting, I’m going to go a little nuts. I’m also going to kill two birds with one stone. My blog isn’t really big enough to have people chasing me down to send them songs where the links have expired or to ask me to repost things. There are however two posts where I keep getting emails of that nature: the two ‘Great lost Weezer songs’ features I did back in April. It seems that despite their current quality or credibility or whatever, people still love to get hold of some Weezer. Particularly if it’s rare. And actually quite good.

As such, below you will find all of the songs that were posted in those two features. I’m not going to comment on the songs individually once again. If you want my comments from the time, click through to the original posts. I’ve also included a bunch of songs at the bottom that I left off of the original posts. I won’t try and lie to you and tell you that they are of the same quality, but they are still very worthy songs, particularly given the band’s current output.

Originally posted in part 1:

MP3 Weezer – Preacher’s Son (expired)
MP3 Weezer – Private Message (expired)
MP3 Weezer – Prodigy Lover (expired)
MP3 Weezer – Queen Of Earth (expired)
MP3 Weezer – Superstar (expired)
MP3 Weezer – The Organ Player (expired)
MP3 Weezer – What Everybody Wants (expired)
MP3 Weezer – You Won’t Get With Me Tonight (expired)
MP3 Rivers Cuomo – Longtime Sunshine (expired)

“New” rare Weezer songs:

MP3 Weezer – Acapulco (expired)
A more mellow song that one comes to expect from Weezer. It was originally recorded with the intention of being a part of ‘Maladroit’, but like a ton of these songs, was eventually scrapped for no obvious reason. It covers pretty standard Rivers territory lyrically (guy finds perfect girl, perfect girl leaves), but it’s simplicity and brevity makes the song come across as far lighter fare.

MP3 Weezer – Burndt Jamb (instrumental) (expired)
MP3 Weezer – Death and Destruction (instrumental) (expired)
Both of these songs obviously ended up on ‘Maladroit’ in entirely different forms. Both songs went through pretty much the same pattern to get there too. Each started off as an impressive little instrumental song. They then had rather good lyrics added to them. These lyrics were then replaced with non-sensical drivel. Guess which versions ended up making the album. Yeah. Anyway, these instrumentals are actually rather good in that they are far more elaborate in their construction than the finished album versions. Combined with good lyrics, they would have been fantastic.

MP3 Weezer – Fontana (expired)
Wow, Rivers with an inferiority complex. Now that’s certainly a novel theme for a song. Joking aside though, it’s probably what Rivers does best when it comes to his songwriting, so unsurprisingly this is a pretty solid song. It’s another of the aborted album five recordings, meaning it never really got developed all that far, but what is here is pretty damn good.

MP3 Weezer – Hey Domingo (expired)
Rivers loves football. Apparently Domingo is a footballer. That’s about all I have on this one.

MP3 Weezer – Little Songs (expired)
Lyrically it’s pretty non-sensical, but the most interesting part about ‘Little Songs’ is how Rivers seems able to rebuild a song from the ground up. I may have my timeline confused a little here, but the instrumentation on this song was originally used in another Weezer song entitled ‘We Go Together’ that the band played live a lot back in 2001. This version of the song is completely different from the original, yet the core of it still remains intact, which is something of an impressive feat.

MP3 Weezer – Mansion of Cardboard (expired)
A rare case of Rivers singing in the third person here. Seemingly a story about a homeless man who is actually quite happy with his lot in life (“He’s on his own / He likes it that way”). A world full of homeless people huddling under bridges is hardly massively original imagery, but it’s different enough to warrant a little attention. If only to prove Rivers can come up with something that isn’t misery or drugs.

MP3 Weezer – Oh No, This Is Not For Me (expired)
This has to be one of the shortest Weezer songs ever. That isn’t really fair to it though as it was never intended to be a full song. It’s another one of the fabled ‘Songs From The Black Hole’ (see ‘Blast Off’ and ‘You Won’t Get With Me Tonight’ above) that would have been an interlude that slotted in just before ‘Tired Of Sex’. I’d love to be able to hear the entire ‘SFTBH’, but it seems odd songs and fragments is all we’ll ever get to hear.

MP3 Weezer – On The Edge (expired)
I think this one dates back to somewhere around 2000 as a demo for The Green Album, but it never progressed further than this version. It’s on the same kind of level as Green when it comes to lyrical quality (“Go out to the movies / Tell my girl she’s groovy”). The only real appeal from this song comes the fun timeshifting and harmonising that’s thrown into it.

MP3 Weezer – Running Man (expired)
Another song sung in the third person, this time all about a perfectionist who tries to control every little aspect of his life. Obviously, this isn’t really an achievable thing to do. Anyone want to start taking bets on whether or not Rivers is actually singing about himself despite the repeated “he’s not me” line?

MP3 Weezer – Sacrifice (expired)
Listen kids, there’s a piano in this one! I’m a sucker for a piano, and it’s something that Weezer didn’t utilise anywhere near as often as they should. It’s also quite an upbeat sounding song, which is something of a refreshing change. Oh no, wait, it’s all about getting dumped.

MP3 Weezer – Serendipity (expired)
As romantic comedies go, you could really do worse than this one. I mean come on, it’s got John Cusack playing a likeable everyman! Eugene Levy being the cranky funny guy! Kate Beckinsale looking good! And Jeremy Piven! Everyone loves Jeremy Piven!

MP3 Weezer – She Who Is Militant (expired)
This is another one of the songs that went through several different versions. I can’t recall exactly where this one slots in timeline wise, but it doesn’t really better as none of the versions were really any better than any of the others. This one included solely because it contains the fantastic lyric of “I need a tissue for my nose”. I kid you not.

MP3 Weezer – The Story Is Wrong (expired)
Weezer song not being sung by Rivers shocker! This one is a Pat Wilson original, and to be perfectly honest, I’d kind of prefer that he stayed behind the drum kit. If you’ve heard any of the records he’s done with his other project The Special Goodness you’ll know exactly what to expect here. A decent enough song that could use more developing sung with a vocalist that sits just this side of bland. It’s just a novelty to hear someone else on vocals more than anything else.

MP3 Weezer – The Victor (expired)
There’s nothing quite like a Weezer song of bitterness that seems to turn up everytime someone breaks Rivers’ heart. This would be the 2002 contender for the title, which although starting mundanely enough (“You like me / I like you”) quickly descends into rather more angry territory. While even managing to throw in the traditional “wha-oh” lines.

MP3 Weezer – Yellow Camaro (expired)
We close our selection of rare Weezer material with another song sung by somebody not named Rivers. This one is all the work of guitarist Brian Bell. From what I understand, a Camaro is some kind of automobile type thing, so I guess there isn’t much in the way of explaination to this particular song. It’s not a great song, but it has a certain kind of frantic energy not usually heard on Weezer songs that gives it some unique appeal though.

Weezer: Website || Myspace

Well that’s your lot for rare Weezer songs. Grab them while you can (14 days at most, probably less) as odds are I’m not going to be putting them up again. I’ll be resuming regular kind of posting tomorrow, which means the October leftovers post and back to writing about bands that weren’t massive in 1994.

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.