Weezer - OK Human (January 29, 2021) Album • Page 53

Numbers
Bird With a Broken Wing
All My Favorite Songs

I'm really trying to cool off on listening to this until my vinyl comes. But I'm just enjoying this record way too much to resist.

 

So I don't mean to start the rankings again, but I broke down my gut feeling rankings vs. how many songs from each album I remember/enjoy and worked it into the following Chorus-friendly tiers:

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED (Mt. Weezermore)
Blue (9.5)
Pinkerton (9.5)
Maladroit (8.5)
White (8.5)

RECOMMENDED
Ok Human (8)
Make Believe (8)
Black (8)
Green (7)
Pacific Daydream (7)
EWBAITE (7)

NEUTRAL
Red (6)
Teal (6)

DO NOT RECOMMEND
Raditude (6)
Hurley (5.5)

 

an odd placement of Green but otherwise mostly fine

 

listening to this as the early morning snow falls is wonderful

 

I agree with basically all of this, except Hurley isn’t even a 5.5 for me lol. I’d maybe move raditude up to Neutral purely because the first song absolutely slaps.

 

Top 3 for me on OK Human are probably the first three songs (not in that order).

There's not a skippable song on this album.

The only thing I would maybe change on this album, and I know I'm in the minority here, is I'd put Dead Roses as the closer. La Brea Tar Pits is good, but I feel like this album could have used more of a haunting closer and Dead Roses kind of fits that vibe.

 

Top 3, no order

1. La Brea Tar Pits
2. Bird with a Broken Wing
3. Aloo Gobi

 

1. Numbers
2. Aloo Gobi
3. La Brea Tar Pits

Here Comes the Rain and All My Favorite Songs are right on the outside of that as well

 

So w/ the exception of Red, I've skipped every album between Pinkerton and White..

I listened to Hurley pretty much all weekend as a break from OK Human, and I do not get the hate. It's so damn hooky.

I'm taking on Green today, updates will probably follow whether you want them or not.

Regarding OK Human:

1. All My Favorite Songs
2. Aloo Gobi
3. La Brea Tar Pits

 

Green is great, the back half is just a little fillery. But it's still super enjoyable and probably stronger than half their catalog.

I've explained before but I was genuinely surprised when I realized Hurley is probably my least favorite album from them. I know the hooks are there. The songwriting ranges from very good to very bad, like most Weezer projects. But for lack of a better term, it just feels like a plastic, inauthentic attempt to recover after Raditude where as EWBAITE and everything after just feels so much more genuine to me. It's just like...I'd rather have them do what they want to do, even if it's Raditude 2, than a half-hearted version of the records we already have.

 

I appreciate that you gave this perspective. As someone who’s definitely tackling these out of order, I’m sure my opinion is going to be different than someone who was waiting for each album consecutively.

 

Aaron nailed it with Hurley. It's not offensively terrible like some tracks on Raditude, but I dunno, it kinda just feels like a band trying to sound like Weezer. It doesn't help that the production quality is much more gritty and less polished than the rest of their stuff.
The best song on there is Ruling Me. And while it's no where near a bad song, I just have no desire to intentionally listen to it.

 

Weezer: OK Human

5.8/10. reviewed by Ian Cohen

 

The Pitchfork review basically summed up how I generally feel about Weezer with this line:

"And yet, Weezer songs most often feel like self-driving cars on cruise control until Cuomo decides to steer the thing off a cliff—throwing in an ill-considered rap cadence, a reference to BLACKPINK or the Morton Salt girl that immediately questions whether Cuomo is writing for anyone other than himself."

Truly a baffling, absurdist band but one doing good work overall these days. I think "Grapes of Wrath" is the only skip on here – the chorus is so grating.

 

Turn it up, it's the Beach Boys, singing loud in a sweet voice
On a roll like a twist toy
KEEP CRANKING THEM BEACH BOYS
Turn it up, it's the Beach Boys, making my eyes get moist
Hold 'em up at gunpoint
KEEP CRANKING THEM BEACH BOYS

 

this is where I am at currently too

 

Pitchfork gave OK Human the same score as The Black Album?

I just keep losing more and more respect for them.

UPDATE: Also just seeing that they gave The Black Album a higher score than Maladroit. This hurts my brain.

 

I agree with the review. I think the shit lyrics undercut the cool things they're doing with the music. I also think they could've gone even harder with the orchestra angle. There are very few moments on here where I'm like "holy shit, what a brilliant use of strings". They're just there, and you get used to them after song 2.

 

Regular reminder that Pitchfork is trash

 

Weezer – OK Human

Why read the P4k review when you can read this one!

 

and ian cohen specifically

 

Hurley is the most boring and bland that Weezer has ever been.

 

That’s incorrect. This honestly might be

 

Yeah I definitely disagree with that

 

I keep beating this drum, but Weezer’s first big song name drops Mary Tyler Moore and Buddy Holly and goes into specifics about why Asian people are different physically.

The next big song is about a sweater.

A single off the record everyone loved talks about obscure ECW wrestlers, and name drops Green Day.

Another one is a song about being mad a girl is a lesbian.

Then they disappeared for awhile, and came back with a song about a gay prostitute in a video with sumo wrestlers.

And then there’s a song literally just about being on an island, which was a good enough fit for children’s television that it became a big song on a Mary Kate and Ashley Olson movie.

How, in 2021, ‘but Rivers writes obscure references that seem to amuse only him into his music’ is an interesting observation is beyond me. Those lyrics are as much ‘Weezer’ as Pat Wilson‘a metronome style drumming. This is who they are and have always been. And, if you don’t like that 27 years into the band’s existence, maybe find a different band to write about.