Speaking of Black, Thick-Framed Glasses

Weezer's new single, "Troublemaker," is abominable. It's about one notch above nursery school rhyme on the songwriting scale, with a ridiculously simple guitar riff that circles over and over and asinine lyrics whose first couplet rhymes "school" with "fool" in exactly the way you'd expect. (You can listen to it via the previous link at the band's home page or at my gym, where the preferred radio station, which I've complimented in these "pages" before, seems to play it each time I'm there.) Now, yes, one of the defining characteristics of rock 'n' roll is its simplicity and structure: three chords may be all you need and unlike classical music, the main theme returns every 45 seconds, not 25 minutes, and there's rarely a complicated interlocking of parts. But this song extrapolates it to an offensive degree.

The case of Rivers Cuomo, the band's lead singer and songwriter and longtime wearer of black, thick-framed glasses, will always be a curious one. His career arc: refreshing, poppy, excellent record for a debut; emotive, widely praised but commercially shunned follow-up; prolonged reclusion; increasingly meaningless records that still sell well; and amid it all, hundreds of unreleased songs, mercurial relationships with his label, and a persona that after what I believe is acknowledged depression is almost uncomfortable and straitjacketed.

Most people my age take "Pinkerton" over the "Blue Album," but I choose differently. The latter is much more fun to listen to without being vapid. In short, it delivers. I read somewhere that current rock critics are so hard on Cuomo because they were all between 12 and 20 when those two records were released (myself included), and since those were so resonant for that stage of life, they expect even greater as time moves forward, which is unsurprising and generally unfair to Cuomo. But maybe Cuomo's songwriting skills are just stunted and he only knows how to write songs for teenagers. (Also a possibility considering the conventional storyline says he started suppressing emotion in his music after "Pinkerton" imploded.) While no one my age can find anything profound in "Troublemaker," maybe its lyrics about leaving school behind for insolent, guitar-playing trouble-making are perfect for that restless 15-year-old spirit, which was once mine and is part of so many boys right now.