Various Artists - Rock Music: A Tribute To Weezer

I heard about this album a while back, and in fact it has been in the works for about 2 years. I originally thought it had promise, but then I forgot all about it. So I was pleasantly surprised when it showed up in the SU mailbox. However, I found that after listening to Rock Music, my general distaste for tribute albums was only intensified. Tribute albums can be a great thing. A great one will allow you to get a whole new take on a song that you may have not even liked before. For instance Zebrahead once did a cover of Hit Me Baby One More Time and it was brilliant. There is nothing like hearing Brittany's shitty lyrics with a punk twist to them. However, then you have an album like Rock Music in which a lot of the bands either try and sound just like Weezer, thus offering nothing new, or do really shitty covers by just throwing in a yell here or there. The album does have its redeeming moments, but there isn't really enough of them to save it. This album can basically be broken down into a couple different types of tracks. You have songs like Piebald's No One Else, Further Seems Forever's Say It Ain't So, and Dashboard Confessional's Jamie in which the band doing the cover doesn't try to put their own twist on the song at all. I mean some of these sound pretty good and some don't, but regardless they sound basically just like the Weezer versions, so what's the point? Then you have songs like Elliott's The World Has Turned..., Midtown's Susanne and Mock Orange's Only In Dreams in which the cover band actually takes the song and plays it in their own style. This is how I think the whole album should be. With the exception of Elliott's track (which is just too slow for my taste) all these covers are really good too. Finally, you have tracks like Mycomplex's "Tired Of Sex" and The Impossibles' "The Good Life" in which the band just totally hacked the song. Both of these bands tried to add their own style, but instead trashed the song and turned it into something I couldn't bare listening to. In summary, although this album had a couple good tracks, and even more "bearable" ones, it just doesn't really offer me anything. If I want to hear Weezer songs I will pop in my copy of Pinkerton or the Blue Album and listen away. So another bad shot for the world of cover albums, although I am still holding out for that "Punk Does Pop" album...now that sounds entertaining. [www.deaddroidrecords.com]