Whenever a new Weezer album drops, fans tend to talk incessantly about the concept of that album. Luckily, many of their recent releases have had clear themes, but their 20th album, Weezer, or The Gold Album, is a bit more subtle.
To me, Gold is about the advice you’d give your younger self. It’s written by a band of veteran rockers, parents, and longtime friends. The songs reflect on decades of life lessons, regrets, and advice they wish they could give to their kids or younger selves.
This album was a long time coming. The gap between SZNZ: Winter and Gold marks the third-longest wait for a new album in Weezer’s history. They poured a ton of work into it, initially in sessions with Swedish producer Klas Åhlund before co-producing with LA-based producer Kenny Beats.
In recent interviews, the band shared how the process unfolded. They started recording with Klas when they took a break to shoot an upcoming film. That project involved heavy improvisation, prompting Rivers to turn to Pat and ask, “Why can’t we make music like this?”
When they reconvened to resume work on their 20th album, things changed. After nearly 35 years together, working with Kenny Beats sparked a shift: for the first time, they wrote much of the album collaboratively as a full unit. Rivers stepped back from handling all the songwriting duties, allowing other members to take center stage. Rivers has been collaborating with other songwriters since Raditude, but this is the first time major songwriting has been done with the other guys in Weezer.
In late ’91 and early ’92, Rivers and drummer Patrick Wilson decided to form a band. They held many conversations about the type of music they wanted to make, even doing some writing and composing together. Some early Weezer tunes sprung from this partnership. Many times, their songwriting interests have aligned. But there have been times they haven’t been on the same page. Patrick, the only other original member alongside Rivers, wrote two standouts on Gold: ‘Shine Again’ and ‘Nowhere.’ Even with Rivers on lead vocals, these songs sound distinctly like Pat. Brian Bell brings a similar energy on ‘The LA Sound;’ it’s Brian, but entirely Weezer. Other tracks weren’t written solo either; most were composed by a combination of Rivers, Pat, Brian, and even Karl Koch.
The band also talks about their raw recording approach: four guys playing together in a room without click tracks. The album has a texture that reminds me of classic ’70s rock, from the acoustic and electric guitars down to the vocal feel. They also kept in studio chatter, which is something they’ve been doing more with recent albums.
As a self-proclaimed easy-to-please Weezer fan, I found a lot to love here. Some of the stronger songs include: ‘Say Yes,’ a fun opener that is about being yourself above anything else. ‘Nowhere,’ a Pat song with some great soft-to-loud dynamic shifts. And probably the major album highlight, ‘Up in the Clouds.’ Originally written 20 years ago as ‘East Coast or West Coast,’ it evolved into its current form about a decade ago. Rivers’ ‘Up in the Clouds’ demos were great, and while I’m still wrapping my head around a few lyrical changes, the expanded arrangement works brilliantly.
Another song I want to mention is ‘The Show Must Go On.’ On first listen, I misheard Rivers singing “creeper,” but he’s actually saying “Creedler”, which is a word former bassist Mikey Welsh invented during his time in Weezer to refer to fans of the band Creed. Hearing them weave that memory into a song about growing up felt moving.
For me, these collaborations paid off. Weezer is doing different things with song structures here, for example, using pre-choruses on songs, and placing bridges before and after a song solo. Things they haven’t always done. It’s nice to see them play around like that after all these years, showing that, even though Rivers feels he has to make the same kind of music that he did in the past, he doesn’t really have to.
If I had to rank it, Gold sits comfortably in the upper-middle of Weezer’s discography. I love every Weezer album, although I like some better than others. For Gold, I really like every song. It has a great sound. It’s a bold album for these guys. The major drawback for me is similar to one of my main criticisms about Maladroit (which would rank near the bottom of the Weezer album list): every song on the album has the same sonic landscape. There’s guitars. Bass. Drums. Some tunes have acoustic guitars. But that’s it. I would have liked a little more in instrumentation. But unlike Maladroit, these songs have different, dynamic structures. And they mean something not just to Rivers, but to this band.
The collaboration led to a solid effort and I have a feeling this will pay off in the future. Over the past few years, Rivers would talk about this album and the process on his Discord channel. Without getting into exactly what was going on, you could tell he was excited about it. And that’s always good to see.
Rivers knows fans often just want the sound of 20 years ago. While Gold touches on that nostalgia, Weezer also pushes into new territory here. The result is an album that feels as inspiring to me today as The Blue Album did back in high school. And that’s pretty incredible.
Above, I shared Weezer’s ‘Up in the Clouds.’ Here’s Rivers’ version:
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