cd reviews pop/rock
Rivers Cuomo, "Alone: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo" (Geffen)
The CD title is an excuse and a boast from Weezer's main songwriter. The tracks are generally homemade and crude-sounding, without the gleam that Weezer would have brought to them. The point of pride is that from guitar licks to layered vocal harmonies, Cuomo did them all on nearly every song. It's an album of mostly nerdy love songs, an annotated sketchbook and a chronicle of one songwriter's ever-changing notions of what he has been trying to do, from high-flown concepts to straightforward pop. For Weezer's fans, the treat of "Alone" is five songs recorded in 1994-95 for an abandoned album, "Songs From the Black Hole." Cuomo had plotted a rock musical that equated Weezer's newfound rock-star status with a voyage into outer space. The newly unveiled songs veer between pop-rock and quasi-opera, with multiple characters, polyphonic vocals and improbable interludes. A full album of them probably would have dumbfounded fans expecting a follow-up to smiley singles such as "Buddy Holly," the one demo on "Alone" from a song Weezer released. That demo is slower, more distorted and less dynamic than the studio hit, but the musical structure is complete. 5311
JON PARELES, New York Times
CHILDREN'S
Medeski Martin & Wood, "Let's Go Everywhere" (Little Monster)
It's kind of sacrilegious to take shots at kids' albums, because they're supposed to be cute, and if they're filled with "family music," they must be filled with fun. Unfortunately, that's not the case when jazz, funk and groove kings Medeski Martin & Wood for some bizarre reason decide to take a break from their typical fare and shift straight into their own brand of "kidz bop." After a brief intro, the album starts promisingly enough with the title-track reinterpretation of Johnny Cash's "I've Been Everywhere," with Tim Ingham singing lead. There's no denying the stellar musicianship of the trio, especially John Medeski's consistently creative keyboard work, but no one gets tested when kids' voices take over on drivel such as "Pat a Cake" or the twisted, spoken-word tale "The Squalb" featuring narration by actor John Lurie. 5312
KEVIN O'HARE, NEWHOUSE NEWS SERVICE
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