Make way for the shlubs.
The year in pop music has so far been dominated by larger-than-life rap stars, notably 50 Cent and the Game, and their on-again, off-again verbal feuding. On Tuesday, however, it’s time for them to make room at the top of the charts for a couple of guys who never would be mistaken for rock stars if they strolled down Michigan Avenue.
That’s when both the Dave Matthews Band and the Rivers Cuomo-led Weezer will release new studio albums, and it’s a virtual certainty that Matthews’ “Stand Up” (RCA) and Weezer’s “Make Believe” (Geffen) will battle it out to debut as the No. 1 album in the nation.
The bands have little in common except for the anti-charisma of their respective leaders. Matthews is perhaps the most unassuming stadium-level act in rock history. With his self-described “boring” lifestyle, doughy physique and a fashion sense that might make a video-store clerk smirk in derision, Matthews has sold millions of albums the hard way: By pushing music instead of sex appeal.
Weezer now routinely sells out arenas as well, even though Cuomo has made his well-documented social awkwardness the primary subject in most of his songs. In a recent cover story in Rolling Stone, Cuomo clearly indicated he had never enrolled in Rock Star School. Among the revelations: He hasn’t had sex in two years.
Into this strange interior world, Cuomo invites his loyal listeners. “Make Believe,” Weezer’s first album in three years, is loaded with big rock songs that sound grandly plaintive or grandly sarcastic, belying the singer-guitarist’s nebbish personality. Cuomo has been exploiting that contradiction between anxious lyrics and confident rock sonics for several albums. The formula started to sound tired on Weezer’s previous album, “Maladroit” (2002). But “Make Believe” ups the ante, in large measure because Cuomo’s lyrics have never sounded more twisted.
The weirdness includes admissions of childlike phobias; he’s “terrified of all things, frightened by the dark” in “Hold Me,” intimidated by an innocuous pedestrian (or is it a spider?) in “Freak Me Out” and perplexed by intimacy in “The Other Way” (“I want to hold you, but I am afraid/I want to touch you, but I’m not that way”).
Ear-teasers
A shrink could have a field day with these insights, but Cuomo self-medicates with fat sing-along choruses and fatter guitar riffs. The arrangements abound with ear-teasers: the chirping answer vocals and hand-claps in “Beverly Hills,” the chugging tempo and swirling keyboards of a classic Cars hit in “This Is Such a Pity,” the guitar figure that punctuates each verse in “The Damage in Your Heart.” With “We Are All on Drugs,” Cuomo has pulled off his unlikeliest coup: an irresistible Just Say No song, a fist-pumper about denial, complete with wind-up exhortations (“give it to me!”) and escalating guitar progressions that Judas Priest would covet. On “Pardon Me,” the song’s narrator pleads for forgiveness, but for what exactly? On this album, abstinence –from drugs, sex, human contact — is the overriding theme.
“I have many doubts about my motives,” Cuomo sings on the Beach Boys-worthy sing-along “The Other Way.” The singer’s doubt fuels some of the most over-the-top power pop this side of Cheap Trick, in which songwriter-guitarist Rick Nielsen turned his nebbish persona into an atypical rock-star archetype. Yet on the album’s final track, Cuomo refuses to be so easily dismissed. “I am going to haunt you every day,” he vows. He’s got the melodies to do it.
If Cuomo is compelling because he amplifies his insecurities, Matthews is content to muse about his ordinary needs and desires on “Stand Up.” His Everyman persona is filtered through a band that never met a musical lick it couldn’t overplay. But on recent albums, the quintet’s jam-band excesses have been tempered by a more song-oriented approach. Producer Mark Batson, known primarily for his work with rappers Eminem, 50 Cent and Talib Kweli, furthers this trend for the better.
If not exactly lean, “Stand Up” feels at least 20 pounds lighter than previous Matthews releases. Melodies unfold over steady rhythms and recurring riffs that approximate hip-hop rhythm loops. Batson’s keyboards dig out a solid, Southern-soul foundation for “Smooth Rider,” which doesn’t waste a note in a surprisingly concise 138 seconds. On the sparse “Out of My Hands,” Matthews’ restrained singing builds drama over a handful of piano chords, and Carter Beauford’s subtle drumming slips into deep space. “Hunger for the Great Light” builds traction and doesn’t let up — an eager rocker that resolves in an otherworldly string quartet. “Steady as We Go” strikes a hymnlike grace note with little more than voice and piano, with Beauford once again brilliantly understated in his commentary.
Persuasive vocals
Only when Matthews falls back on past excesses does he lose ground. Saxophonist LeRoi Moore and violinist Boyd Tinsley are fine for coloring the arrangements, but usually mire the arrangements in the jazz-lite lounge when they step out for solos. Matthews’ vocal performances are among his most relaxed and persuasive yet, but occasionally his old rubber-mouthed tics resurface. His Cajun affections turn “Louisiana Bayou” into an instant novelty. “Dream Girl” opens promisingly with a wordless vocal choir and a delicate acoustic-guitar statement, but it quickly descends into one of Matthews’ silliest songs, a stupefying combination of “We Are the World” reverie and “Afternoon Delight” horniness.
If not entirely successful, “Stand Up” at least suggests that Matthews isn’t content to merely recycle himself as the touring dollars continue to pour in. He may look like an ordinary guy who napped all day on his couch, but inside is a busy musical mind that is starting to learn it can say more with less.
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gregkot@aol.com
