Ok, technically he owes my sister twelve dollars, seeing as she is the one that bought me the latest Weezer album for my 27th birthday two days ago, but the point is that as a Weezer fan, I feel ripped off.
Let’s cut right to the chase, shall we? The heavy suckiness of Make Believe is just barely supported by the mediocrity of the main single Beverly Hills, in which Cuomo takes what could be a nearly tolerable sing along summer song, and thoroughly gays it up with an uncomfortably misplaced soliloquy about three and a half minutes in. Conveniently, Beverly Hills is the first track on the disc, and you may as well stop there. It only gets worse with songs like We Are All On Drugs, and a song called (I shit you not) My Best Friend, with brilliant lyrics like…”There is no other one that can take your place, I feel happy inside when I see your face“. How did we go from El Scorcho to this? Someone please tell me how this transition happens.
I wish Make Believe didn’t suck, I really do. I think Pinkerton is brilliant, I am on my second copy of The Blue Album (I played the first literally to death), I was ok with the 28 minutes of poppy randomness that made up The Green Album, and I really do think Maladroit, although a little off, was overall not a bad album. Hell, I even have that one random Rentals album that Matt Sharp put out in 1995..but Make Believe has ruined it. I think it might be over.
To sum it all up, Pitchfork Media (who admittedly is a bit self important with most of their reviews) gave the album a 0.4. On a scale of 10. A 0.4. And I think they were being generous.
Considering Weezer supposedly went through hundreds of songs and several discarded albums to arrive at this final product, the laziness of this songwriting borders on the offensive. Whether recycling dynamics from the band’s back catalog (see: “Perfect Situation”) or taking the easy Mother Goose rhyme (see: every fucking song here), these 12 tracks sound as if they were dashed off in an afternoon’s work, maybe with Rubin holding the band at gunpoint.