Soundbite: Rivers Cuomo

He’s hung out with Playboy playmates, Kermit the Frog and sumo wrestlers. But beneath his most recent TRL-tailored music videos and tunes, hardcore Weezer fans ““ from Michael Cera to half-Japanese girls to computer nerds without girlfriends ““ know the real potential of Rivers Cuomo.

Though critically massacred after its release in 1996, Pinkerton, Weezer’s most raw and personal album, has been obsessively lauded by the band’s devotees. For years, the most frantic have frequented message boards, fan sites, and even chat rooms with hopes that front man Cuomo will respond to pleas to release more of his jarringly intimate songs.

“Alone: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo” suggests that Cuomo has been paying attention to his oldest and biggest fans. His much-salivated-for, but never completed, spaced-out rock opera “Songs from the Black Hole” makes up the better portion of the album. Though fans have had access to the song for some time, “Blast Off!” ““ the concept album’s stellar distortion jam about being cooped up with babes and beer, complete with robotic interjections ““ remains the album’s best reminder of the depth and quirkiness that recent Weezer songs like “Beverly Hills” and “Dope Nose” lack.

The “Alone” recordings vary in fidelity, but also in Cuomo’s approaches to singing. “Who You Callin’ Bitch?” showcases Cuomo’s operatic abilities, while his manic whisper in “The World We Love So Much” offers listeners the perpetually love-troubled singer’s most successful and stirring display of vulnerability. A Gregg Alexander cover, this 16-year-old demo was recorded before Weezer became a band and while Cuomo attended Santa Monica College.

While his rapping in the Vanilla Ice cover “The Bomb” and a 20-plus-year-old recording of Cuomo and his friends talking about how they want to look like KISS in “I Wish You had an Axe Guitar” may surprise some, these quirky aspects of Cuomo are as much a part of him as an early, but fully realized, recording of Weezer’s first hit, “Buddy Holly.”

Other than a few downers such as “This is the Way” ““ uninspired lyrics and sleazy whispers channel a lesser Marvin Gaye ““ “Alone” captures the nerdy idiosyncrasies, earnest beauty and embarrassingly personal nature of Rivers Cuomo’s best songs. Without the help of any kitschy gimmicks, songs like “Longtime Sunshine” remind long-let-down Cuomo fans why they fell in love with the horn-rimmed Weezer front man in the first place.

– Mindy Poder

E-mail Poder at mpoder@media.ucla.edu.

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