Joey Bear's Official Guide to Albums That He Thinks Are Fairly Neat and Probably Worth a Listen To, Part 1

All right, my carnivores, herbivores, and omnivores, time to get MadChops' Ten Albums That Will Make You Wish MadChops Had Better Taste In Music (brought to you by MadChops) underway. Without further ado, our first album:

Weezer, a.k.a. the Blue Album, by The Weezers, I believe. This gem came out in May of 1994 but I didn't get aurally fixated on it until my freshman year of high school. That's when I started taking music seriously, or as much as I could between football practice, my girlfriend, and general high school debauchery.

The first song I heard from it was Undone. After football practice one night, I had my mom bring my bass and amp, and I spent the night at my buddy Dave's house. He showed me the song and taught me to play it. Pretty soon after, another friend, Matt, was playing it with us too, and Dave's neighbor, Sam, was sitting in behind a drum pad. That was the birth of my days as a rock star, which is definitely another story.

After that, Weezer had me hooked. I learned how to play most of the Blue Album, and listened through Pinkerton and the Green Album. College is when I came to appreciate the Blue Album, though. Sure, it was a fun CD throughout high school, but with maturity came a keener eye. I began appreciating it for its pacing. The way Rivers, and let's all be honest, Weezer is the Rivers Cuomo show, started it faster with My Name Is Jonas and subtly slowed it down through Say It Ain't So to end at Only In Dreams was, and remains, a stroke of genius. While the tempo is never off-the-wall fast, the pace is for the first 6 songs. Even with the drawn-out intro for Undone, it doesn't feel slow. My Name Is Jonas, No One Else, The World Has Turned and Left Me Here, and Buddy Holly feel more like a flurry of punches than individual jabs—you recognize each singular hit, but it's followed so quickly by another that it meshes into one blow. Which makes sense; Rivers has said No One Else and The World Has Turned and Left Me Here are narrated by the same guy.

My favorite part of the album is the latter, smaller half. I like that Say It Ain't So is as tense as it is, which leads to the rowdier second chorus, and the blow out in the bridge. It's not your typical blow out; there's no yelling or guitar shredding, but if you can't hear it in Rivers' voice, you aren't paying attention. The last chorus is just as angry, but then it calms back down with the outro. It's like hitting the reset button for In the Garage, which is straight chillin' on this album. More than ever, I dig this song, with its references to Nightcrawler (pour some out) and Kitty Pryde, two of the greatest X-Men. But it's the harmonica that pulls the song together for me.

The greatest part of this album is hands down Only In Dreams. This is 8 minutes of musical bliss, the likes of which have been seen before, but rarely. It may be blasphemous, but I rate this up there with Bohemian Rhapsody in the epic song category. Once the bridge starts, you're required to strap in. It builds so masterfully: It starts with just the bass and drums, but then one guitar comes in, genuinely just wailing away, quietly at first, while the second guitar plays something pretty, but also quietly. Everything is just itching to move faster and faster, and it finally does. You hear it first from one guitar in the background, quietly strumming faster, followed by the bass and then the drums. Pretty soon after the two guitars are matching each other, and finally (FINALLY!) we get a release after a couple of shots from the snare. The aftermath is what you'd expect: Raw, heavy, pained, and utterly necessary. With an instrument in hand, playing along, it's impossible not to feel anything there, when you're finally letting it all out. Honestly, after listening to Only In Dreams, I need a break. It's an emotional investment. And I appreciate, as a bassist, that the song ends as it began, with the lonesome bass.

The Blue Album sits as 1 of maybe 3 (at most) albums I can listen to all the way through without even an itch to skip ahead. I think it's Weezer's best, and yes, I do own Pinkerton. On the one hand, I think it's sad that Weezer peaked on their first offering, but in the same vein, WOW, they killed it. It's like a grand slam at Game 7 of the World Series, bottom of the 9th, down 3 runs, with a full-count and 2 outs.

And so ends the first entry in JBear's List of Music That'll Get You Whichever Sex You Prefer. Tomorrow, we'll take a look at a planet devourer. And how could I forget—The prizes! Since no one guessed correctly (or at all), tomorrow night's winner has their choice of a 1995 Ford Bronco, two 30 lb. dumbbells, my old Fusion Razor, or the little Batman figure that guards my Mac.