make-believe

Make Believe
Studio album by Weezer
Released	May 10 2005
Recorded	December 2003 – February 2005
Genre	Alternative
Length	45:09
Label	DGC, Geffen (U.S.) B0004520-01 (LP) B0004520-12 (CD)
Producer	Rick Rubin
Professional reviews
All Music Guide link Blender link E! (B-) link The Guardian 05/06/05 Kerrang! NME (5/10) link Q Magazine IGN (9.3/10) link Pitchfork Media (0.4/10) link Rolling Stone 05/19/05 Stylus Magazine (D+) 05/13/05
Weezer chronology
The Lion and the Witch (2002) Make Believe (2005) Winter Weezerland EP (2005)
Singles from Make Believe
"Beverly Hills" Released: 2005 "We Are All On Drugs" Released: 2005 "Perfect Situation" Released: 2005 "This Is Such a Pity" Released: 2006

Make Believe is the fifth studio album by Weezer, released on May 10, 2005, the eleventh anniversary of the release of The Blue Album. Bolstered by the Top 10 hit single "Beverly Hills", it gave Weezer their biggest chart album peak yet, hitting #11 in the UK, #1 in Canada, and #2 in the U.S., where it went gold quickly, and eventually platinum. The song also earned the band their first Grammy nomination for Best Rock Song. Despite this, Make Believe has received mixed reviews from some critics and fans, though it has remained a consistent seller.

As of March 2006, Make Believe has sold 1,103,757 units in the U.S. alone.

Make Believe features the band's first two songs to top the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart, the aforementioned "Beverly Hills" and "Perfect Situation."

Track listing

All songs by Rivers Cuomo.

1. "Beverly Hills" – 3:16
2. "Perfect Situation" – 4:15
3. "This Is Such a Pity" – 3:24
4. "Hold Me" – 4:22
5. "Peace" – 3:53
6. "We Are All on Drugs" – 3:35
7. "The Damage in Your Heart" – 4:02
8. "Pardon Me" – 4:15
9. "My Best Friend" – 2:47
10. "The Other Way" – 3:16
11. "Freak Me Out" – 3:26
12. "Haunt You Every Day" – 4:37

Writing and recording process

As early as spring 2002, and at random points in late '02 and early 2003, demos for possible use on Weezer's fifth album would be uploaded to Weezer.com's audio/visual page. After some time, the band decided to start from scratch with a fresh group of songs. 28 songs were uploaded in all on the website (and can still be found on various fan sites) yet only one ("Hold Me") made the actual album. This batch of songs is commonly referred to as "The A5 Demos" or "Album 4.5,", among some fan groups.

Rivers Cuomo's discovery of meditation in the three years between this and their previous release, Maladroit had a great influence on the content of the album. Mainly on "Pardon Me," which was written after a ten day guided meditation course, in which he learned the ancient techniques of Vipassana (Insight Meditation) and Metta (Lovingkindness) which encourages those who practice to "seek pardon from all those who I have hurt in action speech or thought."^[1] He also claimed the title of the album came to him while meditating.

Make Believe marks a return to Cuomo's more personal songwriting style after taking a more distant approach on the previous two albums. An example of this is "The Other Way," which was written for Rivers' ex-girlfriend Jennifer Chiba after her then boyfriend Elliott Smith passed away. Cuomo said, "I wanted to console her, but I was confused and skeptical about my own motives for wanting to do so, so I wrote that song about that."^[2] "We Are All on Drugs" was inspired by Cuomo hearing party-goers on Sunset Strip.^[2] "Hold Me" was written during a songwriting experiment in which Cuomo fasted for 24 hours and then wrote a song.^[3]

Producer Rick Rubin told Rivers Cuomo to "write a Billy Joel or Elton John type of song." The result of Rubin's request was "Haunt You Every Day" which is not the first Weezer song to feature piano, but is the first that Rivers wrote entirely on piano. According to Cuomo, Rubin told Tom Petty the same thing and he wrote "It’s Good To Be King."^[3]

As the band was working on the album, they struck a deal to have "My Best Friend" be included in the film Shrek 2 yet this deal was scrapped when the makers of the film didn't think it fit to the timings of the visuals. The Counting Crows song "Accidentally in Love" took the place of "My Best Friend."^[4]

Hundreds of songs were demoed during the three year period of making of the album . Despite the abundance of release-able material, to the dismay of many fans, this is the first Weezer album not to feature any b-side releases. Of the notable unreleased material, partial rough versions of "You're The One" and "Love is the Answer" can be heard on the "Making of Make Believe" special feature on the disc's Enhanced CD feature. A cover of Toni Braxton's "Unbreak my Heart" was in consideration for the album and later for a soundtrack, although has still not been released. ^[5]

While deciding on the name of the album, one of the title suggestions given by Patrick Wilson was One Thousand Soviet Children Marching Towards The Sun.^[6] Another suggestion was Either Way I'm Fine (something Cuomo said often during the sessions when discussing changing elements of a song or sound).^[1] Ultimately the title of Make Believe won over his suggestion.

While most Weezer albums are quite short, with a time span around 30 minutes, Make Believe is the longest album they have released to date, clocking in at 45 minutes.

Critical reception

Opinion towards Weezer's fifth album was mixed, receiving both accolades and derision from the music press. Its Metacritic score reflects this, where the album is currently listed at 52 (out of 100).^[7] Thus, some publications like the All Music Guide and Rolling Stone gave it high remarks, like comparing the album to the band's earlier release Pinkerton in terms of its songwriting, sound, and initial critical reaction.^[8] Other reviewers panned the album, like Pitchfork Media's stark 0.4 (out of 10), where reviewer Rob Mitchum notoriously stated, "Sometimes an album is just awful. Make Believe is one of those albums."^[9]

Music sample

Personnel

• Rivers Cuomo – vocals, guitar, keyboards
• Brian Bell – guitar, vocals, keyboards, synthesizers
• Scott Shriner – bass, vocals
• Patrick Wilson – drums
• Rick Rubin – producer

Miscellanea

• "Freak Me Out" is one of two songs that Weezer have never played live in concert, the other being "Possibilities".

• The liner notes feature a monologue from William Shakespeare's play The Tempest. The monologue is taken from Act 5, Scene 1 of the play in which Prospero gives up his magic. This had prompted many fans to speculate that "Make Believe" would be the band's final album. Recent news concerning a sixth album due in 2008 casts doubt upon this interpretation. The monologue is as follows:

Errors

The wrong version of "We Are All on Drugs" appears on the first CD release and all vinyl releases of "Make Believe". It was later replaced with the correct version on subsequent CD releases. The two versions of the song are sonically identical, however two lines of lyrics are different. The incorrect lyrics contained on the first CD release and the vinyl releases are: "I want to confiscate your drugs. I don't think I can get enough. " whereas the correct lyrics on subsequent CD releases are "I want to reach a higher plane. Where things will never be the same. "

Shedding light on the many versions that were released of the album, Weezer archivist Karl Koch posted the following at Weezer.com on June 22, 2007:

Originally, the album was released (May 10, 2005, contrary to what iTunes says) and that was that. But then it was discovered that there were 2 problems. The wrong version of 'We Are All On Drugs" was included, and there was a minor audio problem in "This Is Such A Pity". (Both of these things were things that the band could hear, but if you hadn't heard the song before, you wouldn't know what was 'wrong'.) So, early on, a second version of the album was issued with the 'Drugs' and Pity' corrected. Its not known if any of the original copies were returned and destroyed at that point. Theres likely plenty of both of these first two versions out there, as "Make Believe" sold half a million copies in a matter of weeks (and is currently well over 1 million sold). But then, when it came time for a 3rd single, the band made some changes to "Perfect Situation", changing the "whoa oh" melody and adding the "Perfect Situation" background vocals near the end of the song. This became known as the 'single version' or the 'video version', but the band decided it was better than the original and wanted all further pressings of the album to have this new version instead. So, therefore, a 3rd version of the album was made, and thats the version thats currently on iTunes and in stores (unless they still have very old stock of the CD).^[10]

References

External links

• Official Weezer website's song-by-song commentary
• Weezer confirm album title
• "We Are All in Love: Censorship Absurdity Reaches New Heights" by David Lawson
• Make Believe fanlisting
• The Making of Make Believe at YouTube
• The Making of Believe at Weezer.com

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