Listosaurus Rex

Weezer is a fantastic alt-rock band that I have loved since I first heard “Buddy Holly” on the radio a decade ago.  Since then, I’ve taken the time to get to know their music.  I own every album and just about every EP and single, so I’ve observed the band’s evolution from misunderstood rockers to pop curiosity of recent years.

Though I in no way qualify as a “hardcore” Weezer follower, I am certainly a pretty big fan, and here is my opinion as to the twenty-five greatest songs they have recorded and released on major albums.

My ranking is of the studio versions, and no live tracks, B-sides, special editions, or unreleased material has been included. Particular care has been taken to judge the songs on their musical merit, and not consider them based on music videos or other factors external from the albums themselves.  Plenty of singles have been included, but some haven’t been.  Don’t be surprised to see an album track or two fighting their way up there.

Here’s a little bit of background on Weezer if you want to brush up.

Of course, these picks are just my educated opinion.  Feel free to disagree (and let me know in the comments).  Before I start, I also want to say that just about any track from Weezer’s blue album or Pinkerton could have pushed for a spot on this list.  I love both of those albums in their entirety.  And, without further ado, my picks.  Enjoy!

25. Burndt Jam (Maladroit)

The draw to this song is the catchy guitar riff that the whole melody is built around.  It’s one of a couple tracks on the album that has a distinct enough sound to stick in your head and keep you coming back.

24.  December (Maladroit)

Finally a moment of lightness — after an album of hard-hitting jams, Weezer ends their fourth album with a poppy, upbeat number.  Who can forget the chorus with the words “only love” repeated finishing off the song and album?

23. Island in the Sun (Weezer - green)

Why has this gone down as Weezer’s most popular, best-known song?  It rocks the iTunes charts and has become the dorky four’s signature song.  I always thought it was a bit overrated, though its mellowness and guitar hooks are charming.  Hep hep.

22. Thought I Knew (Weezer - red)

Penned and sung by guitarist Brian Bell, Thought I Knew gives us a different spin on Weezer.  After five albums of the usually excellent Rivers Cuomo taking the lead, his songwriting themes and vocal style have been relentlessly pounded into our heads, so the variety is nice.  Plus the song is darn good — think Fastball in their prime with a Weezer shine on it.

21. We Are All on Drugs (Make Believe)

A tireless satire of drug abuse in the vein of Afroman’s Because I Got High (though not quite as great), We Are All on Drugs is also one of the few tracks on Make Believe worth repeated listens.  Its driving guitar runs push elevate it from the shiny almost-pop that cluttered the rest of the album.

20.  Photograph (Weezer - green)

Short and succinct, but with as timeless a hook as just about any Weezer song, Photograph is a vintage example of the exciting, though somewhat insubstantial power-pop that makes Weezer’s green album such an exciting listen.  Not to be confused with the sappy Nickelback power ballad.

19. Pork and Beans (Weezer - red)

The lyrics are inane (intentially so, I hope), but the hook is so dang good you’ll still be shouting the lyrics as the song blasts from your car radio.  It’s one of the catchiest, most interesting songs since Weezer’s green album.

18. Undone (Weezer - blue)

Somewhat of a novelty, Undone would have a shot at a top five or top ten spot on this list if it had trimmed the talking, skit-like interludes between the verses and refrains.  The refrain has the sort of sunny guitar lick and melody that made Weezer so lovable and famous in the first place.  How can you not love shouting “IF YOU WANT TO DESTROY MY SWEATER….”?

17.  Space Rock  (Maladroit)

Hidden in the fourth Weezer album is a gem of an album track.  It doesn’t soar quite high enough nor have enough ambition to be a single, but it’s a delightful listen; the occasional song like this buried in album can do a lot to prove legitimacy of the talent of a band.

16. Getchoo (Pinkerton)

Perhaps the fiercest, edgiest song Weezer has released, Getchoo is unforgettable.  Its cynicism is propelled by an exciting — almost violent — tune and sonic texture.  The lyrics have a perfect rhythm and poetry to them.  “It used to be a game / now it’s a crying shame.”

15. Across the Sea (Pinkerton)

Rivers Cuomo has written about vulnerability and loneliness more times than I care to remember, but rarely as honestly or touchingly as in this excellent song off of Weezer’s second album.  A love song to a Japanese fangirl who wrote him a letter in one of his moments of isolation, Across the Sea penetrates both into a man’s rise to fame and his inner desperation.

14.  Keep Fishin’ (Maladroit)

The syncopation of the guitar, the bounciness of the refrain, and the backup vocals bring a potentially boring song into a small pop-rock masterpiece.  Though its lyrics aren’t as interesting as the stuff you find on the blue album or Pinkerton, the music might as well be straight out of Weezer’s glory days.

13.  Pink Triangle (Pinkerton)

“Everyone’s a little queer / Oh, can’t she be a little straight?”  A litte bit funny, a little bit heartbreaking, a little bit pathetic?  All of the above.  Pink Triangle is a love letter to a Lesbian and beautifully straddles the line of comedy and tragedy.

12. Beverly Hills (Make Believe)

Some Weezer fans despise it; I love it.  The first single off of Make Believe might have been a more routine affair than the band’s early hits from the mid ’90s, but it brilliantly twisted the beat-driven pop scene into something distinctly guitar driven and pure Weezer.

11. Hash Pipe (Weezer - green)

The continuous bass run complemented by almost-falsetto vocals of Rivers Cuomo might be the most distinctive, memorable sound ever constructed in a Weezer song.  The lyrics, purportedly written in the middle of night after Cuomo woke up and popped some Ritalin, are bizarre and nonsensical but memorable.

10. Butterfly (Pinkerton)

Instrumented with just an acoustic guitar, Butterfly is the closest thing Weezer ever wrote to a pure ballad.   Concealed by the innocuous sound is one of the saddest, most haunting songs I’ve ever heard.  A simple story of catching a butterfly thinly veils a tale of inner and outer destruction.  The final notes of the song — and the album — are joined by Rivers croaks “I’m sorry,” forming one of the most chilling moments in music.  Opera fans with a sharp eye might notice the parallels between this song and the end of Madame Butterfly, which only adds to the song’s intrigue.

9. The Greatest Man That Ever Lived (Weezer - red)

Weezer built their career on creative hooks and charmingly insecure lyrics.  Therefore it’s strange that this song, has such a familiar tune and displays bewildering self-confidence (”I am the greatest man that ever lived”) .  Though it’s a different approach, it still feels like Weezer, in all its eclectic glory.  It’s ballsy, it’s quirky, it’s brilliant.

8. Surf Wax America (Weezer - blue)

Bubbly, sunny guitar rock fills Weezer’s first album.  However, a close listen revealed a true pathos in the lyrics of nearly every song.  The one song from the album which has breezy lyrics to match the album’s melodies was Surf Wax America (though even it has a slight air of loneliness to it).  The result is a masterful pop song, complete with a brilliant hooks and classic lines. For example:”I’m going surfing ’cause I don’t like your face.”  Might be my favorite Weezer line to date.

7. Tired of Sex (Pinkerton)

From the screeching guitars to the band’s straining voices to the sporadic shouting, the first song of Weezer’s second album shows right away that sunniness of the debut is history.  It’s as much a sonic assault as a straightforward song.  Fortunately, the more intense, more stark sound yields a more profound, fully-formed piece of musical expression.  A catchy Weezer melody is buried within a more complex sound, and the result is both bizarre and sublime.

6. Say It Ain’t So (Weezer - blue)

The brilliance of Say It Ain’t So relies on the fact that Weezer decided to take the song slow.  If they had sped it up, it would’ve been far less distinguishable from a dozen and a half other songs by the band.  As it stands, though, Say It Ain’t So is one of Weezer’s masterpieces.  With the off-beat up-strum and a cool, constant beat, Say It Ain’t So is a blend of reggae, metal, and pop brought to life by heartbreaking lyrics about the Cuomo’s youth, troubled by his father’s alcoholism.

5. The Good Life (Pinkerton)

Most of the songs on Pinkerton deal with big troubles in life — loneliness, desperation, frustration — told through metaphors and images of little things.  The Good Life ups the ante and wears its epicness on its sleeve.  Instead of stories about butterflies, Lesbians, and groupies, this song is a straight-up confessional about falling out of happiness.  “When I look in the mirror / I can’t believe what I see / Tell me who’s this funky dude / Staring back at me.”   Equally epic is the melody, soaring higher and lower more dramatically than any Weezer song to date.

4. Dope Nose (Maladroit)

The best Weezer song of the past decade is fast, simple, and short.  The guitar pounds out a peppy, high-voltage series of riffs not seen since from Weezer since Buddy Holly.  The lyrics are weightless, accompanying the timeless licks with catchy lines instead of solid substance.  Rather than a fault, the insubstantial lyrics allow to Dope Nose to rock out uninhibited. In 2:17, Weezer pumps out a tune that sounds like vintage power-pop, but faster and better.

3. Only In Dreams (Weezer - blue)

Regarded by some as one of the premier guitar tracks of the 1990s (in fact, Q Magazine picked it as the #9 guitar song of all time), Only In Dreams is a vast explosion of all the tension built up in the nine self-conscious, insecure tracks that precede it on Weezer’s debut album.  The layered guitar riffs build and coalese into a stunning three-minute crescendo that is one of the defining points of Weezer’s career.

2. Buddy Holly (Weezer - blue)

With the most infectious guitar riff since the Beatles’ Twist and Shout and a little wink of self-conscious irony, Weezer’s second single is one of the most memorable tracks of the 1990’s.  It’s silly without being annoying, it features guitar-work to lend it rock and roll legitmacy, and it’s nerdy in just right ways.  Ultimately, it’s an odd little alt-rock masterpiece, the piece that put Weezer on the map, one of my favorite songs.  And that’s for all of time.

1. El Scorcho (Pinkerton)

From the opening gurgle to the final chorus, El Scorcho is at once yanking our chains and crying tears of honest despair.  Is it truly pathetic, or is it a self-knowing twist of melodrama?  As the junky references to wrestling and snotty punk music are interwoven with opera allusions and the jangly rhythm guitar collides with a heartbreaking vocal performance, we listeners are still left hanging.  And so we keep coming back, listening to it over and over, unable to get it out of our heads, until we realize that the song is intentionally an enigma, a perfect juxtaposition of dorky earnestness and consumable junk-culture.  I rank it among my top half-dozen or so favorite songs of all time, and consider both a work of art and a guilty pleasure.

There are a few things that I tend to wax nostalgic about.  Any victory of the Redskins over the Cowboys would qualify, as would any Billy Joel record my dad played for me as I was growing up.  But another thing I that I have countless warm memories of is computer games.  As far back as I can remember, these interactive adventures were my greatest pastime and the focus of my free time.

I’ve sinced moved on to bigger and better things, like “console gaming” and “having a life” (just kidding), but I will always browse any Greatest Computer Games list to see if any of my all time favorites have been included.  Recently, I stumbled across a particularly professionally-done one on IGN.  Here are the final results of the countdown:

1. X-COM: UFO Defense (1994)
2. Civilization IV (2005)
3. Star Wars TIE Fighter (1994)
4. Rome Total War (2004)
5. Fallout (1997)
6. Starcraft (1998)
7. Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn (2000)
8. SimCity 2000 (1993)
9. Half-Life 2 (2004)
10. Age of Empires 2: Age of Kings (1999)
11. Sid Meier’s Pirates (1987)
12. Battlefield 1942 (2002)
13. System Shock 2 (1999)
14. Company of Heroes (2006)
15. Grim Fandango (1998)
16. Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (2006)
17. World of Warcraft (2004)
18. Call of Duty (2003)
19. Warcraft 2: Tides of Darkness (1995)
20. Deus Ex (2000)
21. MechWarrior 2: 31st Century Combat (1995)
22. The Sims (2000)
23. Unreal Tournament 2004 (2004)
24. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six (1998)
25. IL-2 Sturmovik (2001)

The list straddles between picking influential games, games that were great at their time, and games that are most fun today.  For example, The Sims 2 is a more complete, fulfilling experience than the original, but The Sims blew everyone’s mind by looking good and playing better.  In fact, its addictive life-management gameplay wowed people so much that it outsold any game in history.

I was a bit surprised to see the pick at number one, but I can’t call it a bad pick by any stretch.  I played the shareware version to death back in the day.  It was one of those games I begged my parents to buy the full version for me, but they never budged.  I’ll have to go hunting online and see if I can find a torrent legal download of it somewhere.

But for any lifelong computer game fan, the real satisfaction from this sort of list comes from seeing your favorite games receiving props.  And here is where the list excel.  Warcraft 2 was my obsession for months on end.  Modern RTS games may improve gameplay and graphics, but none will ever steal my heart like Tides of Darkness did.  It was dramatic, exciting, engrossing, beautiful, and hilarious — everything my young mind wanted out of a game.  The map editor alone got double-to-triple hours worth of play from me, and blowing up critters remains my favorite Easter egg in any game.  Even Warcraft 2’s transcendent follow-up, Starcraft, didn’t engross me the way the humans’ and orcs’ epic struggles did.

But the only game to give Warcraft 2 a run for its money was Age of Empires 2.  Epic in scope and brilliant in execution, Age of Kings revived my love of RTS gameplay to a level it hadn’t been since the peak of my Warcraft 2 obsession.  It made up for having only one unique unit-set by having thirteen distinct, balanced civilizations to tinker with.

I’m also glad TIE Fighter is getting props, though #3 might be a stretch.  There was just something so satisfying about flying around TIEs and taking out X-Wings, completing secret objectives for the Emporer and taking orders from Vader.

There are of course a few oddball picks (IL-2 Sturmovik?), and Starcraft as low as #6 will pass as travesty in some circles, but overall this list hits all the right nerves and includes plenty of deserving classics.  Of the twenty-five, I’ve played fourteen of the games (or their similar predecessors or follow-ups), and I now have a hankering to find down some of the picks I missed (Deus Ex, Fallout) to see if they’re worth their reputation.

I watched The Shawshank Redemption for about the fifth or sixth time last night, and I still love it. What a good movie. That ending never fails to pump me up.

I’ve decided that the best part of the movie is the script. It ranks right up there with Pulp Fiction, Casablanca, and Annie Hall as my favorite scripts ever. There are so many brilliant moments in the script.

This got me thinking. What exactly are the best moments of this exceptional script?

After several hours of combing through the movie and pulling out the best moments, it is my pleasure to present what I believe are the greatest quotes from the script.

Let it be known that this post is a SPOILER WARNING! If you haven’t seen Shawshank, don’t read this post. In fact, don’t read anything else about the movie. Just go see it as soon possible, it’s a mighty fine movie.

Without further ado, I present my twenty-five favorite quotes and exchanges from The Shawshank Redemption.

——–

(n) = narration

25.

Red (n): I must admit, I didn’t think much of Andy first time I laid eyes on him. Looked like a stiff breeze would blow him over.

24.

Andy: How could you be so obtuse?

23.

Board member: Do you feel you’ve been rehabilitated?
Red: Rehabilitated? Well now, let me see. You know, I don’t have any idea what that means.
Board member: Well, it means that you’re ready to rejoin society…
Red: I know what you think it means, sonny. To me it’s just a made up word. Politicians word, so young fellows like yourself can wear a suit and a tie and have a job. What do you really want to know. Am I sorry for what I did?
Board member: Well, are you?
Red: There’s not a day goes by that I don’t feel regret. Not because I’m in here and because you think I should. I look back on the way I was then, a young, stupid kid who committed that terrible crime. I want to talk to him. Try and talk some sense into him. Tell him the way things are. But I can’t. That kid’s long gone, and this old man is all that is left. I gotta live with that. Rehabilitated? That’s just a bullshit word. So you go on and stamp your form, sonny, and stop wasting my time. ‘Cause, to tell you the truth, I don’t give a shit

22.

Warden: Lord, it’s a miracle! A man up and vanished like a fart in the wind.

21.

Red: It’s just shitty pipe dreams. I mean, Mexico is way the hell down there, and you’re in here.

20.

District Attorney: And that, also, is very convenient. Isn’t it, Mr. Dufresne?
Andy: Since I am innocent of this crime, sir, I find it decidedly inconvenient that the gun was never found.

19.

Red: I’m telling you, these walls are funny. First you hate them. Then you get used to them. Enough time passes, it gets so you depend on them. That’s institutionalized.

18.

Red (n): I could see why some of the boys took him for snobby. He had a quiet way about him. A walk and a talk that just wasn’t normal around here. He strolled like a man in a park without a care or a worry in the world, like he had on an invisible coat that would shield him from this place. Yeah, I think it would be fair to say I liked Andy from the start.

17.

Red (n): Geology is the study of pressure and time. That’s all it takes, really. Pressure and time.

16.

Red: Only guilty man in Shawshank.

15.

Heywood: Count of Monte Crisco.
Floyd: It’s Cristo, you dumb shit.
Heywood: By Alexan-dree Dumm-ass. Dumbass?
Andy: Dumm-ass? Dumas. You know what that’s about? You’ll like that, it’s about a prison break.
Red: We ought to file that under educational too, oughtn’t we?

14.

Red (n): And that’s how it came to pass that on the second last day of the job, the convict crew that tarred the plate factory roof in the spring of ‘49 wound up sitting in a row at ten o’clock in the morning drinking icy cold Bohemia-style beer, courtesy of the hardest screw that ever walked a turn at Shawshank State Prison.
Captain Hadley: Drink up while it’s cold, ladies.
Red (n): The colossal prick even managed to sound magnanimous. We sat and drank with the sun on our shoulders and felt like free men. Hell, we could have been tarring the roof of one of our own houses. We were the lords of all creation. As for Andy, he spent that break hunkered in the shade, a strange little smile on his face, watching us drink his beer.
Heywood: Hey, want a cold one Andy?
Andy: No thanks, I gave up drinking.
Red (n): You could argue he’d done it to curry favor with the guards or maybe make a few friends among us cons. Me? I think he just did it to feel normal again, if only for a short while.

13.

Andy: You know what the Mexicans say about the Pacific?
Red: No.
Andy: They say it has no memory. That’s where I want to live the rest of my life. A warm place with no memory.

12.

Red: They send you here for life, that’s exactly what they’re taking.

11.

Andy: So you don’t forget… forget that there are places in the world that aren’t made out of stone. That there’s something inside that they can’t get to, that they can’t touch. It’s yours.
Red: What are you talking about?
Andy: Hope.
Red: Hope? Let me tell you something, my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane. It’s got no use on the inside. You better get used to that idea.
Andy: Like Brooks did?

10.

Andy: I understand you’re a man who knows how to get things.
Red: I’m known to locate certain things from time to time.

9.

Red (n): Sometimes it makes me sad, though, Andy being gone. I have to remind myself that some birds aren’t meant to be caged. Their feathers are just too bright. And when they fly away, the part of you that knows it was a sin to lock them up does rejoice. But still, the place you live in is that much more drab and empty when they’re gone. I guess I just miss my friend.

8.

Brooks: Easy peezy Japanesey.

7.

The Warden: Salvation lies within.

6.

Red (n): Andy crawled to freedom through 500 yards of shit-smelling foulness I can’t even imagine. Or maybe I just don’t want to. 500 yards. That’s the length of five football fields, just shy of half a mile.

5.

Red: This is wear she does that shit with her hair.

4.

Red (n): I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I don’t want to know. Some things are best left unsaid. I like to think they were singing about something so beautiful it can’t be expressed in words and makes your heart ache because of it. I tell you, those voices soared higher and farther than anybody in a gray place dares to dream. It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made those walls dissolve away. And for the briefest of moments, every last man in Shawshank felt free.

3.

Red: Same ol’ shit, different day.
2.

Andy: I guess it comes down to a simple choice. Get busy living or get busy dying.

1.

Red (n): I find I’m so excited I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it’s the excitement only a free man can feel, a free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain. I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend and shake his hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope.

I was delighted to stumble across a well-written, authoritative list of the 25 Greatest Rap Albums by hilarious blogger and commentator Byron Crawford from ByronCrawford.com. Here is his complete top twenty-five:

1. N.W.A. - STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON (1988)
2. SNOOP DOGGY DOGG - DOGGYSTYLE (1993)
3. 2PAC - RAP PHENOMENON II (MIX TAPE, 2003)
4. RUN-DMC - RAISING HELL (1986)
5. PHARCYDE - BIZARRE RIDE II: THE PHARCYDE (1992)
6. LL COOL J. - MAMA SAID KNOCK YOU OUT (1990)
7. EPMD - UNFINISHED BUSINESS (1989)
8. BEASTIE BOYS - PAUL’S BOUTIQUE (1989)
9. A TRIBE CALLED QUEST - THE LOW-END THEORY (1991)
10. DE LA SOUL - BUHLOONE MINDSTATE (1993)
11. THE D.O.C. - NO ONE CAN DO IT BETTER (1989)
12. ERIC B. AND RAKIM - FOLLOW THE LEADER (1988)
13. GENIUS/GZA - LIQUID SWORDS
14. GHOSTFACE KILLAH - SUPREME CLIENTELE (2000)
15. GETO BOYS - THE RESURRECTION (1996)
16. WYCLEF JEAN - THE CARVINAL (1997)
17. ICE CUBE - AMERIKKKA’S MOST WANTED (1990)
18. SCARFACE - MR. SCARFACE IS BACK (1991)
19. JAY-Z - REASONABLE DOUBT (1996)
20. NAS - STILLMATIC (2001)
21. OUTKAST - AQUEMINI (1998)
22. PUBLIC ENEMY - IT TAKES A NATION OF MILLION TO HOLD US BACK (1988)
23. LAURYN HILL - THE MISEDUCATION OF LAURYN HILL (1998)
24. DJ QUIK - WAY 2 FONKY (1992)
25. DIZZIE RASCAL - BOY IN DA CORNER (2004)

I think this list is great because he gives credit where credit is due all around, and isn’t afraid to disagree with the so-called experts and music writers. Maybe if this list was just thrown out there I wouldn’t think very much of it, but if you read what he has to say about each album, it’s obvious this cat knows what he’s talking about when it comes to rap.

I like the distribution over time: he’s got Run DMC and Eric B. & Rakim, but he also has Outkast and Lauryn Hill. He doesn’t really play favorites by loading up the list with picks from just a few rappers. There’s plenty of range.

I may not agree with every pick — for example, I liked Illmatic more than Stillmatic, and I definitely would’ve included 36 Chambers — but Byron backs up every pick with solid reasoning.

I so liked the list that I wasted a half hour delving through his archives. He’s a pretty funny guy, and if you want a good chuckle, I recommend you check out his blog. His current topic of choice is the 2008 election, particularly the race issues behind it. Very thought-provoking and funny.

In short, check out this man’s list and his blog in general, too. He’s got some good stuff to say all-around.