Weezer (Black Album)
| Weezer
Weezer (Black Album)
Weezer, also known as the Black Album, is the thirteenth studio (and sixth self-titled) album by American rock band Weezer. Produced by Dave Sitek, it was released on March 1, 2019, through Crush Music and Atlantic Records. - Wikipedia
Critic Reviews
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Pitchfork
Weezer reflects on their own capricious history, using a blunt force the likes of which they’ve never deployed before.
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SPIN
Weezer’s Black Album is neither as good or as bad as you hoped.
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Rolling Stone
The band’s 13th album portends a musical change-up, but its core is still precise, poker-faced pop-rock.
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NME
The LA band have made a wilfully goofy album whose jokes wear pretty thin, pretty fast – though this is a largely solid alt-pop record nonetheless.
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Kerrang!
Pop-rock kings Weezer get it all wrong on long-awaited ‘Black Album’.
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Consequence of Sound
It's like watching a friend you love making a really bad choice.
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The Ringer
We are dealing with either the best terrible band or the worst great band of their generation. We will never be free of them, or they, apparently, from us.
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DIY Magazine
A great - albeit mis-matched - collection of songs.
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The 405
Weezer’s Black Album is a musical mid-life crisis and a point of no return.
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PopMatters
Black Album lurches forward bloodlessly, with no clear direction but the sensation of the moment, which is always expiring. There's no getting this zombie back on track.
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Medium
There are some great songs on WEEZER (BLACK ALBUM), and I’m sure I’ll appreciate them even more once I’ve listened to them a million times.
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Under the Radar Magazine
And all of it sounds like Weezer flowering into the absolute worst version of themselves.
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Flood Magazine
It’s Cuomo at his best, on an album that too often finds him at his worst.
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Knox News
Frontman Rivers Cuomo is restlessly enterprising on the Black Album, fitfully brilliant and frustrating.
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The Young Folks
It doesn’t revolutionize the Weezer discography, but it has its moments of intrigue.
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Clash Magazine
Confused, cringingly uncomfortable and desperately out of touch.
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AP News
Weezer’s ‘Black Album’ mocks, shocks and knocks.
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Wall Street Journal
The latest from the 25-year-old rock band has lots of instrumental detail, but when the songs aren’t banal, they’re simply meaningless
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Exclaim!
Weezer's latest is an utterly skippable collection that'd be entirely unremarkable if not for the fact it was released by Weezer.
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Sputnik Music
Do somethin' kinda unique to me.
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Already Heard
‘Black Album’ is another dagger in Weezer’s declining legacy.
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OCOLLY
Weezer's 'Black Album' shows the band's age - for the worse.
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The Musical Hype
Not slowing down in the least and remaining prolific, Rivers Cuomo and Weezer release their second album of 2019, ‘Weezer (Black Album).’
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Spectrum Culture
Thus, as uneven and muddled as it can be, The Black Album gets one clear message through from Cuomo to the thirty- and forty-somethings who loved him in the ‘90s: thanks for everything, but it’s time we all moved on.
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All Music
The Black Album feels like the most fully realized latter-day Weezer album: it may flagrantly draw from old and new elements of pop culture, yet it belongs to its own feverish world.
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mxdwn Music
Listening to this album is like staring into the abyss. The abyss of uninterestingness. The abyss of a lack of good ideas. The abyss of having given up.
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Amnplify
It is strange, out of its mind and it is fun. Think of every bright, fluorescent colour you can think of and that is the sound of this album.
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VultureHound Magazine
With half of the album standing out in the worse of ways, I can only give it a generous 3/5.
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Star Tribune
Weezer's 'Black Album' mocks, shocks and knocks.
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BeatRoute
But no matter how much digging through the band’s colour-coded discography you do, there’s no narrative present to explain the band’s official fade to black.
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Pretty Much Amazing
This is the most disjointed record in Weezer’s discography.
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Daily Free Press
‘Black Album’ is a disappointing shift from Weezer’s legendary style.
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Breeze JMU
The 37-minute-long album is a solid attempt to rebrand, but undoubtedly comes across as a jumbled mess.
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Immortal Reviews
Weezer redefine their sound by adding a modern, pop rock punch to it in their new record Weezer (The Black Album).
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Chorus
But to see them finally make a semi-successful jump at crossover appeal they’ve always craved? It’s hard to knock the hustle.
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The Tower Light
While by no means a terrible record, this is probably going to be one where fans are going to pick and choose their favorites and put them on a playlist instead of hearing the entire record, and I can’t say I blame them.
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Earbuddy
Obviously, I’d prefer the Weezer of old.
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The Sound Board
The Black Album may be a desperate cry for relevance in 2019, but it’s not one that’s suitably built on or realised in any way, shape or form, and while Weezer might want to prove they’re just as spry as the young pups in the yard, they come across more like the old dog limping about on its gammy leg – old, pitiable, and crying to be put out of its misery.
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The Times
You have to wonder how much tolerance even they can have for the band’s perennially adolescent semi-comic singalongs.
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Duke Chronicle
The “Black Album” as a whole is forgettable.
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ACRN
Weezer (Black Album) is no different than the last few albums: it’s full of tracks that are disjointed, confusing and hollow.
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Iowa State Daily
The aging rock band alienates their fans and turns off newcomers.
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WQRI
All in all, the album is a solid experience that new and old Weezer fans should get enjoyment out of.
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Sungenre
Sadly, the Black Album is a mixed bag with a couple hits outshined by a lot of clear misses.
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The McGill Tribune
Despite these shortcomings, Weezer (The Black Album) is not messy, nor is it poorly produced. It’s the pop fixtures and referential quality that are antithetical to Weezer’s musical identity.
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Lyrical Spell Magazine
This album felt too soft and like cotton candy. I know the band can do better.
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wrbb
Weezer disappoints with the ‘Black Album’.
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Upset Magazine
Weezer's The Black Album is your traditional Weezer muddle.
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The Michigan Daily
Weezer goes dark with ‘Black Album’.
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CommMedia
It is a very enjoyable listen, but as a Weezer album, it is middle of the road.
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The Heights
Even so, Cuomo’s hustle can’t be knocked, and this album is a solid first step toward getting back to fresh and innovative music for Weezer.
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The Underground
“Black Album” is bland in more ways than one and should not have been released in the first place.
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The Daily Campus
The album is nothing less than a classic Weezer album. It rings true to their brand and what they’re known for.
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Dead Press
‘Weezer (Black Album)’ feels like a sinking ship that doubles-up as a rollercoaster – it’s a bit of a wreck, but simultaneously, weirdly fun as you go down into inane depravity.
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Mystic Sons
US geek rockers loose momentum on thirteenth full-length.
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Joes Pocket
Who knows, maybe Cuomo is just trolling us and I am just another critic falling for the bait. However, trolling is a phase; this is a midlife crisis.
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The Offbeat
Despite its flaws though, this is a fairly decent (and very eclectic) album.
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Record Retrospects
Black Album is, I feel, exactly the music that the band wants to create.
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mynameis0ash
Besides its cliche and quick forgetfulness, I can’t criticize it too much, but I think those people who have been looking forward to a really “black and dark album” for a few years from this bad will be concerned (to put it mildly).
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The Fordham Ram
If nothing else, this album effectively communicates its central message: Weezer is going to keep making whatever music they want, and if old fans take issue, they are having too much fun to care.
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Wall of Sound
Take my advice and just pretend this album doesn’t exist.
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Spill Magazine
Overall, Black Album is a weaker release by a band that seems to be lacking direction.
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The Reflector
I enjoyed this release, but I would have loved to see the group strike a better balance between old and new more consistently on this album.
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The Mont Clarion
The pieces don’t fit together into anything mind-blowing, but the individual songs themselves are all enjoyable.
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The Spinnaker
It makes me upset to see Weezer continue to struggle to make a strong complete LP, but with a few tracks being strong, it is nice to know they still have the talent to produce great music.
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In Review Online
The melodies aren’t catchy so much as they are infectious, like poison ivy, unpleasantly difficult to expunge from ones mind.
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