All You Need Is ...

I was listening to the new Weezer album, Raditude, last night, and thinking that they are really starting to repeat themselves, that Rivers Cuomo has found this faux party anthem style of songwriting that sells lots of CDs, or downloads or whatever, but isn't really authentic from-the-heart stuff that will last over time (like 1996's Pinkerton). This morning, however, just to compare notes and see if I'd missed something, I read the Allmusic review which pointed out that this was Cuomo's look back at his Gen-Y days and a "passionate surrender to growing up." Okay, fair enough, but while skillfully put together, I still probably won't be giving it too many listens. (Maybe because it doesn't "speak" to me, as I'm somewhere in the alphabet before Gen-Y, or Gen-X...more like Gen-M (for Middle age).

I will add one track to my playlist, however: "Love Is The Answer," with Nishat Khan on sitar and vocals which add a nice eastern touch. I'm a sucker for songs on this theme, with lyrics that include lines like "You have got to trust in yourself," and "Take it easy on yourself." This kind of message never gets old.

Then, in keeping with the principle of synchronicity, the next album I put on was "Dimensions" (also from 2009) by Australia's psych/pop band The Lovetones, which featured the track "Love & Redemption." Just lovely. Notice a common theme?

These guys probably won't sell 1/10th - or more likely 1/100th - of the albums as Weezer, but this music deserves to be heard by a wider audience.

Note: Weezer's tune is not the same as the Stylistics' 1974 pre-disco song by the same name:

Nor the really wonderful one by (Todd Rundgren's) Utopia:

But I love 'em all.