Fargust's Full Review: Weezer (1994): Deluxe Edition [Remaster] by Weezer
I can't believe how excited I was to hear that there was a Deluxe Edition of The Blue Album coming out in March. I was floored. Weezer defined my high school experience. I became infatuated with their music in 1994 with the release of Weezer (more commonly known as The Blue Album), and my love for them was solidified with the 1996 release of Pinkerton, probably one of the least justified critical disappointments of recent memory. But The Blue Album was there with me for the last 10 years, and it's got a special place in my heart.
This release is a two disc set, along with a very informative little insert featuring lyrics and song explanations, but we'll get to that part later. The first disc is the album itself, sounding great as usual. I didn't have a copy of the original on hand to see if there were any noticeable differences between the original and this one, but if there are then they must be minor mixing changes, because this was certainly The Blue Album that I've always known and loved. I won't go into a review of that album on its own here, because that's not the main thrust of what this release is for. It's mostly for the second disc and the insert.
The second disc is fourteen tracks long and full of rare B-sides and unreleased tracks, along with some live tracks and early demo versions of songs on the album. Here's a track listing:
1. Mykel and Carli
2. Susanne
3. My Evaline
4. Jamie
5. My Name Is Jonas
6. Surf Wax America
7. Jamie
8. No One Else
9. Undone-The Sweater Song
10. Paperface
11. Only in Dreams
12. Lullabye for Wayne
13. I Swear It's True
14. Say It Ain't So
Tracks 5, 6, 8, 9, 11, and 14 are alternate versions of tracks which appear on the original album. The first three of those tracks, along with number 11, are live versions, and they're very fun to hear, because Weezer is awesome live (I saw them in the summer of 2002 in Camden, NJ). Their tone is good, and the acoustic sound is great. Track 9 is a little treat; it's the original version of Undone that was on an early 8-track demo they recorded called The Kitchen Tapes (because the drums were recorded in a kitchen). It's sloppy and doesn't sound great, but it sure is fun to hear the roots of one of your favorite bands. Track 14 was a little disappointing to me, because it's just the (original) album version of "Say It Ain't So," one of my favorite songs of all time, but the only thing that distinguishes it from the version on disc 1 is some minor mixing changes that are nearly indistinguishable unless you listen to the two recordings back to back.
Tracks 1-4 should be familiar to many Weezer aficionados. Though they're just B-sides, they're probably the four most famous of the B-sides. Susanne was used in the end of Mallrats, and the others have been floating around for a long time. Track 7 is a live version of Jamie, which is also track 4. They're both good, and listening to them that close together somehow didn't make me sick of the song. Tracks 10, 12, and 13 are the only ones which I could say were truly new to me, but I wasn't all that crazy about them. I can see why they weren't included on the album.
The real gem of the collection was, for me, the insert. There was a brief write-up by their producer talking about how difficult they were to sign even though they had been turned down by many other studios. There's the trivia tidbit that although The Blue Album eventually went on to sell 3,000,000 copies, it only sold 90 in its first week of release! There's explanations of some of the songs, such as that "Susanne" was about an employee of Geffen Records who actually did give Rivers the coat off her back and make them brownies; and "Jamie" was a loving tribute to the band's first lawyer. Probably the most touching is that "Mykel & Carli" is about the band's first two really big fans who were killed in a car accident on their way to a Weezer show.
There are lyrics on the insert, but the way they're presented is rather neat. There's pictures of the original papers on which the lyrics were written, some of them crumpled up or scratched out. There's even one with a homework assignment written up at the top! This is really neat stuff for us crazy Weezer fanatics.
On the whole, the Deluxe Edition of The Blue Album is a solid purchase, though it's pretty pricey at most retail stores. I'd suggest a Best Buy or online if you're going to get it, but if you do, you won't be disappointed.
Weezer reviews~ The Blue Album
Pinkerton: (coming soon)
Green Album: (coming soon)
Maladroit: (coming soon)
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