Alone: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo came out last week and i was able to get my grubby mits on a copy.
What had my juices flowing was that some of the track on the cd where lost tracks from Songs from the Black Hole, Songs from the Black Hole is an unreleased, unfinished Weezer album. A space themed rock opera/musical, it was originally envisioned as the follow-up album to The Blue Album, but over the course of recording, the album's concept was discarded and the album was transformed into Pinkerton. Its story arc follows: a five-person (plus one mechanoid) crew of a spaceship on an important mission, our noble protagonist Jonas is given a meaty role while crewmates Wuan and Dondo are one-dimensional avatars for womanizing and partying.
Blast Off!
The leadoff track for Songs from the Black Hole is a dramatic rock song with a high-reaching melody and shifting dynamics. The lyrics are a conversation between the main character Jonas and his shipmates Wuan and Dondo. Jonas is excited yet reserved about the prospect of doing what he thinks is his dream job. Wuan and Dondo are much more upbeat about the experience. In the middle of the song M1 (the mechanoid) interjects via vocoder to remind them of the task at hand. In the last verse we find that a female character has entered the scene and that Jonas had a ‘relationship’ with her back at Star Corps Academy
Who You Callin’ Bitch?
Jonas and Maria continue the conversation started in Blast Off!
Superfriend
The song is a conversation between Jonas and (presumably) Laurel. In it, Jonas chides himself for giving into the seduction of Maria, even though he does not love her. Laurel urges Jonas to grow up and be better than that. Jonas finds himself smitten with Laurel, but she can see through his act and tells him to get real.
if all this is a bit weird remember these were written with the help of painkillers as Cuomo healed from leg surgery.
the album in general is good, has weak and strong moments, but the real thing for me was to be able to hear some tracks off Songs from the Black Hole. That said is also has Cuomo doing an Ice Cube cover (The Bomb), and most of the tracks were recored before 1996.
well, i leave you with the demo version of Buddy Holly off Alone: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo.
