Coveting Cuomo On Make Believe, Rivers reaches out beyond Weezer's core audience BY NICK SYLVESTER

Weezer have almost everything to do with why I care about indie rock. And I don’t imagine I’m alone in this sentiment. There must be a whole segment of my twentysomething peers who feel the same way — kids from the suburbs too demure to dig metal, too fat for grunge to fit, and too parentally advised to buy Wu-Tang on the sneak.

Weezer were never indie in label or even ethos, and hindsight cynicism screams that these lovably ironic punk-pop geeks were just Geffen’s programmed lower-fidelity alternative to the heavier acts dominating the early ’90s. Who knows? In any case, we freaks and geeks abused the band’s horn-rim demeanor to geek it up all the more. We heralded the shy band’s relative simplicity, and we celebrated frontman Rivers Cuomo’s cleverness and sincerity, the more so when we found out he was studying at Harvard. As we began to establish a system of musical values, we looked for Cuomo in other artists, following the scent into a rich ’90s Amerindie scene that would soundtrack our teens and first-everythings. (I also think it’s safe to say the song "Buddy Holly" is the only reason many people my age know who Holly is.)

The band’s 2001 homonymous CD, a/k/a "The Green Album," and 2002’s Maladroit didn’t elicit the same mystical response as their debut or its proto-emo follow-up, 1996’s cult hit Pinkerton. By 2001, though, who really cared? We had found our Pavements and Jesus Lizards and Brainiacs; many of us had ventured into more experimental terrain. Some of us played catch-up and gave dance and pop and mainstream hip-hop a chance. And after what we’d heard of Cuomo’s played-up personal trauma, I for one was more than willing to grant Weezer their duds — the least I could do for those guys. Maybe that’s asinine of me, but I didn’t have much invested in the band by then — I was happy to think of them as the good and sometimes great major-label act who’d led me toward more exciting music below the radar.

Which is why I have to ask: who are all you out there in the wake of Weezer’s fifth studio release, Make Believe, listening for the cock’s third crow and poised to slag Rivers Iscariot for betraying you? "The songs are boring," people say. "The lyrics are way retarded. I heard he’s just trying to write songs using math equations he ran looking for patterns in popular alt-rock songs." Come on: have Weezer really changed their act that much since 1994? Maybe it’s just you?

As music, the songs on the Rick Rubin–produced Make Believe could pass for any of the band’s "Blue" or "Green Album" material. (The cover shot even makes it look as if Make Believe were meant to be "The Black Album.") The exception is the trendy Cars rip "This Is Such a Pity," a modest acknowledgment of new wave’s recent mainstream revival (and perhaps a nod in the direction of Ric Ocasek, who produced both "Green" and "Blue"). Which is to say, if the songs here sound boring, unsurprising, and way too Dashboard Confessional to you, well, go back to the rest of Weezer’s discography — even those albums you loved — and you may be surprised to hear how boring, unsurprising, and overly confessional they were too.

If Cuomo is doing anything different here, it would seem to involve zeroing in on what made his best songs great, cutting the slack, and keeping outright duds to a minimum. "The Damage in Your Heart" recalls the progression of Pinkerton’s "Pink Triangle." "My Best Friend" has a few "Taxman" moments. And the shout-along lead single "Beverly Hills" sticks to one of rock’s most primal and efficient riffs, the 1-4-5 (think Joan Jett’s "Rock And Roll").

People love familiarity dressed up as something new, and Cuomo knows it. He writes songs that want to be loved, and whether the foundation is tradition or mathematics, he’s always aimed for instant and maximum pleasure, which means taking minimum risk and relying on proven tricks. He seems convinced that there exists a set of magical riffs that guarantee satisfaction, no matter how many times you’ve heard them before. Tales of his mammoth songwriting output have become legendary over the years — it’s an article of faith that he’s worked hard to pare away distracting details until he uncovers the essential hook of a song. In that sense, Make Believe is an outright triumph: the melodies are bold and the chintzy harmonies are kept to an all-time low.

Many have seen Rivers’s quest for universal appeal as a betrayal of his own heart, the large presence of which most Pinkerton fanatics cite as that album’s strength and the key to its personality. But Cuomo’s songs have to appeal to him too if the intent is to make their appeal universal, no? His interest in locating the general taste in the particular taste and vice versa means he’s disregarding the idea that pop music is pop lifestyle, that people’s tastes are predicated on their identification with particular musical subcultures.

So maybe Make Believe isn’t the same massively personal statement as Pinkerton. And perhaps the songs here, with their efficient licks and their fear of failure, aim merely for the immediacy pop music at its best provides. To delve into the lyrics is to realize the lengths to which Cuomo has gone to excise every trace of band personality from the design of his one-size-fits-all power pop. The results play like musical greeting cards. And that’s not a slam. Designed to be co-opted by the public and the media, Make Believe is vague enough that almost anyone can shoehorn his or her personal story into it but specific enough that if The OC needs a musical backdrop for an apology, well, Weezer Greetings has just the thing. As products, these songs are damned efficient, down to Cuomo’s overuse of the me-to-you voice and sentiments that are never veiled.

The lyrics do get heavy-handed in spots. "Tell me there’s some hope for me/I don’t want to be lonely/For the rest of my days on the earth," he sings on the Queen-like "Perfect Situation." Whether he’s meant them to or not, Cuomo’s lyrics have always played up his geeky-teenager side. He’s relied on clever twists and powerful images like the girlfriend who doesn’t wear make-up for anyone else in "No One Else" and the half-Japanese girl who shreds the violin in "El Scorcho." But in "This Is Such a Pity," we get, "We should give all our love to each other/Not this hate that destroys us/This is such a pity." Pinkerton’s most maudlin moments were forgiven as extreme autobiographical revelations. Make Believe doesn’t yet have the back story or the cult status to excuse its most maudlin moments. And two big singles that aren’t pop greeting cards, "Beverly Hills" and "We Are All on Drugs," are so blunt in their irony, so blatant in their morality play, that even the laziest tears-in-my-beer singer-songwriter seems subtle by comparison.

With an album full of stock songs just waiting for listeners to fill in details from their own lives — and with Cuomo’s pleasure mandate dictating the band’s every move — it’s no wonder Weezer included very little Make Believe material when they played Boston's Avalon nightclub on May 8, two days before the disc’s release. Instead, Cuomo led the band through the entire "Blue Album" in a set peppered with only the most popular songs from the other discs. Make Believe hadn’t had time to make personal connections with listeners, and Cuomo seemed to take that into account. And he may be hoping that the less personal nature of the new material — its very non-specificity — will foster deeper connections for a broader range of listeners than did the band’s previous output.

If Weezer fans are reacting badly to the new album — and many are — it’s because the songs haven’t been lived in yet. And they may never be given how quickly the digital age devours media of all kinds. That’s the gamble Cuomo’s taken: by relinquishing his artist tag for plebe-songmaker status, he’s dared his loyal fan base to question his motives and even his integrity.

Reception is everything. It’s nice to know what an artist’s intentions were, but they’re secondary to how you hear the music. I’m pretty sure Cuomo’s not a manipulator, at least not an ill-spirited one. His aim with Make Believe is, I think, to make as many people happy as possible by borrowing from the best of good songwriting dating back to the days of Buddy Holly. He wants to give us what he thinks we want. I’d even go so far as to say he’s a selfless perfectionist. Unfortunately, the martyr-like melodrama of Pinkerton has made it all too easy to put a negative spin on Make Believe’s attempts to reach out to a broader audience.

And as much as I hate to admit it, Make Believe’s efficiency frustrates me. What drew me to Weezer in the first place was Cuomo’s gritty self-indulgence — the sheer bravado of starting a band and not being perfect about it. Weezer’s relative amateurism (however feigned) made them more inspiring, and more capable of convincing even the most awkward teens that they could (and should) start bands. Now, those of us who coveted Cuomo need to learn how to share him with others.