Weezer (White Album)

Weezer - Weezer (White Album)
Critic Score
Based on 28 reviews
2016 Ratings: #351 / 1004
User Score
2016 Rank: #101
Liked by 298 people
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CRITIC REVIEWS

90
XS Noize

The White Album is the saving grace we all needed and it tops everything the band released throughout the 2000s.

90
Spill Magazine

What has been created here is the perfect, summer road trip record. Weezer are all sunshine and no rain on this perfectly pure White Album.

90
AllMusic

The 2016 installment of Weezer isn't nearly as messy as the group's last color-coded eponymous record.

88
Sputnikmusic

Make no mistake, The White Album is the long awaited and worthy successor to Pinkerton. And that’s not an exaggeration of any kind.

85
The Line of Best Fit

This isn't The Blue Album. This isn't Pinkerton. Nothing Weezer have released in the years since ever could be. That doesn't mean the band can't make good records. It just means they just spent a few too many years choosing not to.

80
NME
For the most part ... ‘Weezer’ is Cuomo’s 634th attempt to recapture the vivacity of his band’s 1994 debut and the savage rom-pop glory of its acclaimed cult follow-up ‘Pinkerton’, and with more success than usual.
80
SPIN

It might not be the best batch of songs Rivers has written since the ’90s ... but its front-to-back coherence as the Third Weezer Album You Always Wanted But Long Gave Up Hoping For is simply staggering. 

80
No Ripcord

In writing White Album, Cuomo stresses how he felt he hadn’t made a full-blown beach album, even though many would be quick to defend that Blue Album is the quintessential nineties surf rock album. But never has there been a theme attached to it, and in White Album, Weezer are dutifully following a similar pop template akin to The Beach Boys’ pre-psychedelia streak.

80
The Young Folks
That’s what was great about Weezer in the first place: a cool band for all the uncool people of the world. That unbridled optimism is nice to have back in the usually dour world of current music.
80
DIY
This is no pastiche of so-called ‘classic’ Weezer. Nostalgic, yes – ‘Wind In Our Sail’ and ‘Jacked Up’ both edge towards the theatrical, while ‘(Girl We Got A) Good Thing’ is brazenly Beach Boys-esque in its melodies – but this isn’t a band replicating past glories to sate grumps’ receptions.
80
The Needle Drop

Damn, Weezer! Back at it again with the White Album!

75
A.V. Club

After enduring low points like Make Believe and Hurley, Weezer fans finally have their favorite band back making music that’s both catchy and emotionally resonant.

75
Consequence of Sound
That is the best thing about Weezer in 2016: The group still holds its own singular identity. It’s what makes some of its most effortless offerings, like “California Kids” and the trotting, mournful “Jacked Up”, seem ideally set for the radio dial that has afforded Weezer so much success.
75
Entertainment Weekly
It ... offers a glimmer of hope that yet another masterpiece is within their reach.
70
Exclaim!
Having sufficiently lowered our expectations over the past two decades, Weezer are finally back on a winning streak.
70
musicOMH
Despite wavering towards the second half, there is no doubt that this is Weezer’s best album in years. It continues the fine tradition of their colourful self-titled LPs and feels like the start of a new chapter for the band.
70
GIGsoup
Weezer's tenth studio album takes the red, splashes it with green, rubs a little blue over it - and leaves us wondering why this isn’t the swansong Rivers Cuomo and co. deserve after 24 years of being the alternative rock scenes resident underdogs.
70
Rolling Stone
Cuomo has been aggressively trolling fans of his youthful-sincerity phase for the past 15 years – which is five times longer than his youthful-sincerity- phase actually lasted. Weezer's fourth self-titled album is a sustained Beach Boys parody, with tunes like "Wind in Our Sail," "L.A. Girlz" and "Endless Bummer."
70
PopMatters

It will satisfy the band’s longtime fans that are still weary (and wary) from a decade of really dubious music from the band. But it also manages to add some new wrinkles to Weezer’s overall sound.

62
Pitchfork

We listen to Weezer in 2016 largely for nostalgic dog whistles ... Most of all, we listen for reassurance that our beloved Weezer can avoid relapsing completely into embarrassment—and by those parameters, mediocre may as well be magnificent.

60
The Guardian
This being late-era Weezer there are of course some erratic songwriting decisions – the dorky half-rhymes of Thank God For Girls – and a fair bit of filler (Jacked Up, (Girl We Got a) Good Thing are entirely unmemorable), but there’s also enough here to stir feelings of nostalgia in anyone who fell for the band the first time around.
60
Spectrum Culture
Weezer sounds like something close to Weezer again.
60
The 405

The latest attempt at complete reversion is comforting and sweet - it's nice to know Rivers finally woke up - but it's cheapened by the sense that it's just too late now.

60
Under the Radar

Although The White Album is predictable in that its singles are stand-outs, that just feels like another way that Weezer are doing a great job at sounding like Weezer.

50
Pretty Much Amazing

What with the new Star Wars movie coming out, the timing for this particular brand of dinosaur nostalgia couldn’t be better, and I presume it’s why I’m still somehow made aware of the arrival of a new Weezer record while a genuinely great nostalgic bubblegum party record by, say, the Go! Team comes and goes and nobody even flinches.

50
Drowned in Sound

White is... fine. It’s OK, it’s not bad, but it’s largely standard Weezer and the stand-out tracks are fewer and further between.

BGL13
93

girl we got a good thing is the only thing keeping this from being my favorite weezer album

Stankysauce
100

This may or may not be my favorite album of all time. It's a mixture of nostalgia, importance to me and the fact that I just love it. Every song on here is an amazing, summery, catchy, fun and poppy rock track with some very distorted guitar tones, great vocals and songwriting, distinct drum patterns, fun and youthful lyrics, and pianos. This album should be respected more as a Weezer project. If this was released in 2001 I think it would be praised just as much as the two albums preceding it. ... read more

charlie17
85

So if you haven’t noticed, in the past few weeks I’ve been listening to Weezer's back catalog and putting it up on aoty for all to see. And while there were a few surprises(red, maladroit), most of it was terribly disappointing(Green, Make believe, Raditude). But now, my journey end, and to make it special I’ll be actually writing a structured review on the band. Enjoy!

Long Form Review:

I recently listened to “Weezer (White Album)” and I thought it was really ... read more

kv09
86

The internet people were right, this is a really good comeback album. There isn't really a single thing that makes this album good, it's just a collection of great pop rock tracks. It's like the summer if it was an album.

TheZetaCoreYT
88

Yeah this freaking slaps. California Kids and Endless Bummer were both really good songs and this album had a great vibe from it.

California Kids: 100/100
Wind in Our Sail: 85/100
Thank God for Girls: 90/100
Good Thing: 78/100
Do You Wanna Get High?: 87/100
King of the World: 90/100
Summer Elaine and the Drunk Dori: 86/100
LA Girlz: 83/100
Jacked Up: 84/100
Endless Bummer: 100/100

Average Score: 88/100
Overall Score: 88/100

Favorites: All (pretty much)
Least Favorite: Good Thing if I had to ... read more

ShagMusicMaking
95

Goes Crazy 🤯

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Year End Lists

#18/The Needle Drop
#23/LA Music Blog
#28/Dork
#32/No Ripcord
#46/Earbuddy
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Added on: January 15, 2016