II, Joe

I long for a connection. I need to know that this matters. The way I can prove that it matters is through connection. Connection to what has come before. Connection, and recognition. I reach back through the present and into the past. It's the only way. Otherwise, we're just left with a silly little geek rock album comprised of a whole lotta nothin' and stupid fucking jokes.

The connection is to the video for "Lump," which I watched a fair amount in my youth. Specifically in the late '90s, I wanna say, or early aughts. This was on our new Dell computer, with a Windows 95 operating system, which came with a demo CD-ROM, which included this music video among its grand total of two music videos ("Buddy Holly" was the other one, and vastly preferred, but this isn't a Weezer review). There was something exciting about being able to watch a music video on a computer, and that excitement bled over to my feelings about the music itself. So I've always liked that song, but let's be clear about it: this is purely a nostalgic exercise, enjoying "Lump." And, like all nostalgia formed in one's youth, when you follow up on it searching for more, you realize that your younger self was a stupid dumb immature idiot.

Have you heard "Peaches"? Of course you have. It's probably more popular than "Lump." Imagine my horror when I realize, many years later, that this stupid fucking "Peaches" song that I hate so much is by the same fucking jabronis who made that awesome song "Lump." How many lessons will I need to learn before the message is made clear? That nostalgia is so often misguided? That kids are fucking morons and they are influenced by the thinnest measures? I do still think "Lump" is a great song, but I acknowledge fully that this must only be because of when I first experienced it. There's no other reason.

You can listen to the self-titled debut album, as I have, if you want know what I'm talking about. But for today, we're listening to the sophomore album, called II. It's just a reiteration that the band I liked a lot for one song is actually just a jokey rock outfit operating in a genre that I've traditionally despised, and that the whole "Lump" thing was total coincidence, a totally fucking arbitrary decision by some unnamed Windows 95 engineer, random happenstance that landed on my lap and briefly bamboozled me into thinking that this was music worth following up on. It is not. I don't like it.

The genre tag of "geek rock" does a lot of the heavy lifting for me when it comes to explaining why I don't like this music. Because that way I can connect it to something like They Might Be Giants, arguably PotUSA's closest peers. It's not comedy rock, but comedy-adjacent. "Comedy," like with quotes around it, since comedy is subjective and I don't find it very funny a lot of the time, especially in music. "Humorous subject matter with an intellectual bent" is how RYM explains the genre—fucking kill me. Is this what we're calling something like "Bug City"? A song that is neither humorous nor intelligent but clearly striving to be both? Or am I simply missing the joke?

If there's a joke, then I'm still not laughing. Oh god, do I really have to relitigate the whole "what's cool, am I cool" hand-wringing exercise? Didn't I do that recently? Yes, I did. tl;dr: I'm a perennial fucking loser who was unfortunately had installed within me the unshakeable desire to feel "cool," and have an internal psychotic reaction to anything that the body perceives as "uncool," to the detriment of basically anything else attached to it. If you give me a rock song instrumental with a good crunchy guitar riff, then I'll say that I like it a lot. Include lyrics on that song about a sitcom character finding a tiki idol and the mayhem it causes, and these little alarm bells start going off in my head that force me to back away as quickly as possible.

Maybe it's, like, the lack of sincerity that makes it not work for me? We've been over this too. The PoYB bible explains it just fine, thank you (I'm talking about Infinite Jest), how our generation grew up constantly surrounded by irony and that way of life became the norm and there are consequences to that. A song like "Froggie" is "supposed" to be funny because it has a single layer of irony: it's "about" a froggy jumping around on stage, but it's actually about drugs. Lame as FUCK. This is just a pushback on my part against simple irony, which I'm tired of, having been raised in its muck and stink. I think it would work better in either direction on the irony scale. Make it sincere, like make it about the horrors of getting sucked into a life of drugs because of success in rock 'n' roll. Or go past the irony, and make something post-ironic, i.e. that you're joking about not joking, e.g. "Frog on the Floor," one of the greatest songs of the 21st century, and a funny song because the joke is how sincere it is (maybe even funnier that it's 100 gecs doing the post-irony sincerity).

Instead, you have the caveman reaction of "ha ha isn't this HILARIOUS, it's actually a song about drugs!" Don't piss on my head and call it rain. Don't give me some entry-level humor and call it funny. If you wanna be funny just make a fucking comedy rock album and be done with it. Don't think that one level of irony is what makes you "smart." It's basic-ass shit. At least someone like Weird Al lets you know where he stands before making his comedy. There were exactly two good songs on that Weird Al album we covered, and I think they prove my point here. The first was "Now That's What I Call Polka!", which was post-ironic in the way that it jokes about playing pop songs as polka music, but then makes the true joke how sincere the polka music is. The other is "Foil," which is meta-post-irony, in that it's (1) a joke because it's a parody of "Royal" by Lorde, then (2) sincere in the way it's actually a credible version of "Royal" but about tin foil and how it wraps up food, and then (3) a joke again in that it suddenly switches to a song about conspiracy theories, and presented in a sincere way so that you can't tell where the joke begins or ends.

Am I being clear? No? Well, that's okay. I never make much sense when I get angry about music. I just huff and puff and write a couple thousand words about nothing and then that's it, I never really have to think about it again. But you have to see, right? Why I wouldn't like this? Have you heard "Puffy Little Shoes"? They are trying to be funny by writing a song about nothing. The joke is that all these things don't matter and all he cares about are shoes. Isn't that FUNNY?! It's just too smirky for me. Wipe the goddamn smirk off your face. Half-hearted stabs at humor will not be tolerated here. Stop thinking you're clever. FUCK.

But you can see why I need to cling to something like "Lump" at least, right? That's the bottom line here. Because without "Lump," I'm losing my sanity. At least I can use "Lump" as a life raft to keep afloat out here on the rocky seas of music criticism, where I find myself for some reason attempting to explain post-irony, for no important reason. I cling to "Lump," and the simple, feel-good memory of watching these goofy young men dance around in a swamp and sing a catchy song.

What's that you say? "Lump" is another attempt at lame humor? With Chris Ballew attempting to evoke images of an "overweight middle-aged woman in a house coat with curlers in her hair and a cigarette"? No, don't tell me. I don't want to know any of that. I recognize the music on this album as of a similar quality to those pixelated men from my Windows 95 computer. Catchy, and THAT'S IT. That's all I need. I have that connection. That's fine. Let me tune out. I don't want to know what it's about. I don't want to see your rictus grin. Just let me listen to "L.I.P." and not care, not care about what it's about, no, just listen to the music, it's nice, it's catchy, that's it.

(Wait that acronym stands for WHAT?! I can't do it. Sorry!!!!!!!)

GRADE: II pukes out of V