25th November - Rivers Cuomo's Alone II: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo

Artist – Album: Rivers Cuomo – Alone II: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo

Released: 25^th November 2008

Sounds Like: The cutting room floor

 
Bit of a tricky one this – should I really be covering Alone II, a compilation of various unreleased material from sourced from songs recorded with Weezer, earlier bands, and self-recorded demos? It’s not technically a real album but an anthology, and I certainly wouldn’t ever stoop to include a Best Of on my blog. But then, the point is that none of these tunes have been released before and they have been selected and sourced by the artist himself, so it is kind of like a real album. Hmmm… Tricky… Fortunately, I can cite precedent: in July I covered They Might Be Giants’ Long Tall Weekend because I couldn’t find anything else, and so, with reference to the TMBGLTW case, it is decreed that I am allowed to cover Alone II.
 
Which is a relief, because again there wasn’t much else. And it is actually Quite Good.
 
While there isn’t anything that screams out as a lost Weezer classic – if there ever was such a thing, it stands to reason that that would have surfaced on Alone I – Rivers Cuomo remains one of history’s greatest ever power-poppers and there’s no shortage of diamonds in the rough, next to the 30-second instrumentals and Beach Boys covers. Amongst the favourites are the bouncy ‘I’ll Think About You’, the manic ‘My Brain is Working Overtime’ and  ‘The Purification of Water’, which pleasantly deviates away from the power chord driven formula on the back of a apocalyptic Hammond organ.
 
It’s hardly essential, but Weezer and indie rock fans in general could do a lot worse than giving this a spin.
 
Albumaday... rating: 6/10
 

1.       Victory on the Hill – 0:50

2.       I Want to Take You Home Tonight – 3:56

3.       The Purification of Water – 3:56

4.       I Was Scared – 2:54

5.       Harvard Blues – 0:31

6.       My Brain is Working Overtime – 3:27

7.       I Don’t Want to Let You Go – 3:46

8.       Oh Jonas – 0:26

9.       Please Remember – 0:37

10.   Come to My Pod – 1:31

11.   Don’t Worry Baby – 2:58

12.   The Prettiest Girl in the Whole Wide World – 2:44

13.   Can’t Stop Partying – 2:18

14.   Paper Face – 3:20

15.   Walt Disney – 2:50

16.   I Admire You So Much – 0:46

17.   My Day is Coming – 4:23

18.   Cold and Damp – 3:35

19.   I’ll Think About You – 3:01

 
Listen to ‘I’ll Think About You’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-ahhiRs010