Weezer (The Red Album)
	Tracks 2/4/5/6/10 produced by Rick Rubin and Weezer Tracks 1/3 produced by Jacknife Lee, tracks 7/8/9 by Weezer
	Released on June 3, 2008
	US CHART POSITION #4 . . . UK CHART POSITION #21
	Find it at GEMM
B0011135-02 cover [high resolution scan]

C uomomyth 6.0: ENFANT TERRIBLEMAKER. Red rocks. I don’t know how this album could get mixed reviews; I was in love with it after the first listen. Sure, it’s pretty much forty minutes of Rivers Cuomo telling the world to kiss his ass, but I say Tell me where the line starts. Of the three colored albums, Red is really the first to draw outside the lines of power pop, instead drawing on hip-hop and stripped-down hipsters like The White Stripes and The Hives. “Troublemaker” is just freaking awesome, a brilliant statement of purpose. I’m gonna play some heavy metal riffs and you will die? Yes, and go to heaven! And then there’s the aptly titled Greatest Man, which is like Queen for people with ADD. Finally, the power pop you remember returns on “Pork And Beans,” but with a weird little hip-hop remora stuck to it. It’s bliss until “Heart Songs,” which is a wimpy admission that Cuomo digs Debbie Gibson (dude, TMI), and the harmless “Everybody Get Dangerous.” Then it’s another sixty seconds of heaven with “Dreamin’” before that just falls apart. Suddenly, the Cuomo Show is interrupted for three mutinous tracks from his co-stars (Weezer at the Speed of Sound?), including a surprisingly solid alt-country tune from Brian Bell (“Thought I Knew”) and a pretty good go from the bootylicious beatman (“Automatic”). Cuomo returns for a powerful closer that builds in intensity, “The Angel And The One.” The difference between Red and Green and maybe even Blue is that Red is a calculated mindf*ck. Cuomo in his cowboy hat and Bell in his beard aren’t the same waifs that wandered into the Geffen hitmaking factory fourteen years ago; they’re savvy to the starmaking machinery and smart enough to throw a wrench into it at the right time. In the RGB color chart, Red is for Radical.

TRACK LISTING

1. TROUBLEMAKER
2. THE GREATEST MAN THAT EVER LIVED (VARIATIONS ON A SHAKER THEME)
3. PORK AND BEANS
4. HEART SONGS
5. EVERYBODY GET DANGEROUS
6. DREAMIN'
7. THOUGHT I KNEW    (Brian Bell)
8. COLD DARK WORLD    (Rivers Cuomo/Scott Shriner)
9. AUTOMATIC    (Patrick Wilson)
10. THE ANGEL AND THE ONE
    
    Bonus tracks
    
11. MISS SWEENEY
12. PIG
13. THE SPIDER
14. KING
15. THE WEIGHT
16. LIFE IS WHAT YOU MAKE IT
    
    Tracks 1-10 written by Rivers Cuomo unless noted
    

CREDITS

BRIAN BELL --
RIVERS CUOMO --
SCOTT SHRINER --
PAT WILSON --
Rich Costey -- mixing
Justin Gerrish -- mixing engineer
Andrew Scheps -- engineer
David Schiffman -- engineer
Dana Nielsen -- engineer
Tom McFall -- engineer
Eric J. Dubowsky -- engineer, sound design & percussion (5)
Robert Fisher -- art direction
Sean Murphy -- photography
Karl Koch -- photography

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