Maladroit
Maladroit | ||||
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Cello, Los Angeles, California | ||||
Genre | ||||
Length | 33:43 | |||
Label | Geffen | |||
Producer | Weezer | |||
Weezer chronology | ||||
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Singles from Maladroit | ||||
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Maladroit is the fourth studio album by American rock band Weezer, released on May 14, 2002, by Geffen Records. Produced by the band, it was their first album to feature bassist Scott Shriner, following the departure of former bassist Mikey Welsh in 2001, although Shriner was featured in the music video for "Photograph" from the The Green Album. Musically, the album features a hard rock sound and heavy metal riffs uncommon to Weezer's previous releases.[5]
Supported by the singles "Dope Nose" and "Keep Fishin'". Maladroit received positive reviews from critics and was ranked number 90 in a Rolling Stone readers' poll of top albums.[6] The album debuted and peaked at number three on the Billboard 200, selling 152,000 copies its first week.[7] As of 2022, the album has sold 605,000 copies in the United States and was certified Gold by the RIAA a month after its release.[8]
Background and recording
For the band's fourth studio album, Weezer attempted to incorporate an innovative system in which the group would release demos in MP3 format on the band's website every day while in the studio working on Maladroit.[9] This resulted in dozens of different versions of over thirty different songs circulating on the Internet before the album was released.
The idea was to keep communication open with the band's fan base on the group's official
The band's uploading of MP3 demos onto its website resulted in some radio stations playing the still unreleased (and sometimes unfinished) songs.
The airplay resulted in a gag order being issued by Geffen Records in which they requested that Weezer return the master tapes from the Maladroit sessions and apologize to each radio station that played the song.[14][15] The band members resisted, citing that they had funded all the sessions themselves and that apologizing seemed pointless.[16] The fans resisted as well, forming an online group called "Unreleased Weezer for the Masses" that rallied for the release of the album.[17]
The hit songs "Dope Nose" and "Hash Pipe" (off
Packaging
The cover art was done by a fan selected from contest submissions. The album title maladroit, meaning "awkward, clumsy, inept", was suggested by a board member on the Weezer message boards who went by the screen name of Lethe.[11]
The album's first 600,000 copies were specifically numbered with the number located on the back of the CD case near the lower right-hand corner.[20]
Maladroit was the first Weezer album to be released in the Enhanced CD format, which contained bonus videos including live and studio footage, as well as a video of drummer Patrick Wilson riding a skateboard down stadium ramps.[21]
Critical reception
Aggregate scores | |
---|---|
Source | Rating |
Metacritic | 72/100[22] |
Review scores | |
Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [23] |
Blender | [24] |
Entertainment Weekly | C+[25] |
Los Angeles Times | [26] |
NME | 8/10[27] |
Pitchfork | 5.4/10[28] |
Q | [29] |
Rolling Stone | [2] |
Spin | 7/10[30] |
The Village Voice | B−[31] |
Maladroit received generally favorable reviews. At
Spin ended up calling it the 6th best album of 2002,[34] and Rolling Stone readers voted it as the 8th best of the year.[35] In another Rolling Stone readers poll, it was voted the 90th greatest album of all time.[6]
In June 2009, Magnet had an article on the five most overrated and underrated Weezer songs. "All of Maladroit" was ranked number one on the list of the underrated half, where they comment "Maladroit, the band’s fourth album, is actually really good: not exactly deep, but it has some really stellar pop songs ... Sure, Maladroit never became a cultural touchstone the way the band’s first two albums did, but it deserves more credit than it ever got."[36]
Track listing
All tracks are written by Rivers Cuomo
No. | Title | Length |
---|---|---|
1. | "American Gigolo" | 2:42 |
2. | "Dope Nose" | 2:16 |
3. | "Keep Fishin'" | 2:52 |
4. | "Take Control" | 3:05 |
5. | "Death and Destruction" | 2:38 |
6. | "Slob" | 3:08 |
7. | "Burndt Jamb" | 2:39 |
8. | "Space Rock" | 1:53 |
9. | "Slave" | 2:53 |
10. | "Fall Together" | 2:02 |
11. | "Possibilities" | 2:00 |
12. | "Love Explosion" | 2:35 |
13. | "December" | 3:00 |
Total length: | 33:40 |
No. | Title | Length |
---|---|---|
14. | "Living Without You" (on some European issues) | 2:49 |
15. | "Island in the Sun" (European and Australian bonus track) | 3:20 |
Total length: | 39:49 |
No. | Title | Length |
---|---|---|
1. | "The Quiet Storm" | 0:31 |
2. | "Dope Nose (Live)" | 1:03 |
3. | "Death and Destruction (Live)" | 1:01 |
4. | "Burndt Jamb (Live)" | 1:31 |
5. | "The Cobo Challenge" | 1:52 |
6. | "Keep Fishin' (Live)" | 1:25 |
7. | "Take Control (Live)" | 0:57 |
Total length: | 7:23 |
The European and Australian version of Maladroit features "Island in the Sun" from The Green Album as a bonus track. Some of the European issues also contain the otherwise unavailable "Living Without You", sequenced between "December" and "Island in the Sun".
Personnel
Personnel adapted from Maladroit liner notes[37]
Weezer
- Rivers Cuomo – lead vocals, guitar, production
- Pat Wilson – drums, production
- Brian Bell – guitar, backing vocals, production
- Scott Shriner – bass guitar, backing vocals, production
Additional personnel
- Chad Bamford – additional production, engineer
- Rod Cervera – additional production
- Jordan Schur – executive producer
- Tom Lord-Alge – mixing
- Christopher Carroll – additional engineering
- Carlos "Loco" Bedoya – additional engineering
- Femio Hernández – assistant engineer
- Darren Mora – assistant engineer
- Steven P. Robillard – assistant engineer
- Stephen Marcussen – mastering
- Karl Koch – "Farm Hand"
Charts
Weekly charts
|
Year-end charts
|
Singles
Year | Song | Peak positions | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
US Modern Rock [53] |
UK
[54] | ||||||||
2002 | "Dope Nose" | 8 | — | ||||||
2002 | "Keep Fishin'" | 15 | 29 |
Certifications
Country | Certification |
---|---|
United States (RIAA) | Gold[8] |
References
- ^ a b "Weezer Maladroit". Pitchfork.
- ^ a b Powers, Ann (May 9, 2002). "Maladroit". Rolling Stone. Retrieved January 16, 2010.
- ^ Richardson, Sean (May 9, 2002). "Dope noise". Boston Phoenix. Retrieved May 2, 2022.
- ISSN 1539-7459.
- ^ "Weezer: Maladroit". PopMatters. 27 June 2002. Retrieved 3 March 2022.
- ^ a b "2002 Rolling Stone Readers' 100". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 2007-10-02.
- ^ Inc, Nielsen Business Media (2002-06-01). Billboard.
{{cite book}}
:|last=
has generic name (help) - ^ a b "Gold & Platinum". RIAA. Retrieved 3 March 2022.
- ^ Luerssen D., John, 2004 p. 398
- ^ "Odder Than Hell". Guitar World. Archived from the original on 2007-11-03. Retrieved 2005-07-09.
- ^ ISBN 1-55022-619-3p. 405
- ^ Luerssen D., John, 2004 p. 406
- ^ Orshoski, Wes. "Geffen's Weezer on 'Maladroit'." Billboard: The International Newsweekly of Music, Video and Home Entertainment May 11, 2002: 1,1, 72. ProQuest. Web. 21 July 2015 .
- ^ Luerssen D., John, 2004 p. 410
- ^ Luerssen D., John, 2004 p. 411
- ^ Luerssen D., John, 2004 p. 413
- ^ Luerssen D., John, 2004 p. 412
- ^ Eliscu, Jenny. "Rivers Cuomo's Encyclopedia of Pop". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on 2009-10-21. Retrieved 2015-07-09.
- ^ Luerssen D., John, 2004 p. 420
- ISBN 1-55022-619-3p. 432
- ^ Maladroit (CD back cover). Weezer. Geffen Records. 2002.
{{cite AV media notes}}
: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link) - ^ a b "Reviews for Maladroit by Weezer". Metacritic. Retrieved January 16, 2010.
- ^ a b Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "Maladroit – Weezer". AllMusic. Retrieved January 15, 2011.
- ^ Ratliff, Ben (June–July 2002). "Weezer: Maladroit". Blender (7): 100. Archived from the original on August 8, 2004. Retrieved July 6, 2016.
- ^ Browne, David (May 24, 2002). "Maladroit". Entertainment Weekly. Archived from the original on December 22, 2016. Retrieved May 4, 2012.
- ^ Cromelin, Richard (May 12, 2002). "From Weezer, Exuberant 'Maladroit' Is Anything But". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved August 30, 2013.
- ^ Beaumont, Mark (December 21, 2002). "Weezer : Maladroit". NME. Archived from the original on March 3, 2016. Retrieved January 25, 2011.
- ^ Mitchum, Rob (May 27, 2002). "Weezer: Maladroit". Pitchfork. Retrieved January 15, 2011.
- ^ "Weezer: Maladroit". Q (190): 118. May 2002.
- ^ Sinagra, Laura (June 2002). "Rivers' Edge". Spin. 18 (6): 101–02. Retrieved July 6, 2016.
- ^ Christgau, Robert (April 22, 2003). "Not Hop, Stomp". The Village Voice. New York. Archived from the original on December 20, 2013. Retrieved February 9, 2013.
- ^ Damas, Jason (June 28, 2002). "Weezer: Maladroit". PopMatters. Retrieved May 15, 2013.
- ^ JR (2007-05-14). "Weezer - Maladroit Review". IGN. Retrieved 2011-01-15.
- ^ Spin Magazine Staff. "Best Albums of 2002". Spin. Archived from the original on 2012-10-12. Retrieved 2007-10-02.
- ^ "Rolling Stone Readers' Top Ten of 2002". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on 2011-06-28. Retrieved 2007-10-02.
- ^ "The Over/Under: Weezer". Magnetmagazine.com. 2009-06-30. Retrieved 2011-09-24.
- ^ Maladroit (liner). Weezer. Geffen Records. 2002.
{{cite AV media notes}}
: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link) - ^ "Australiancharts.com – Weezer – Maladroit". Hung Medien. Retrieved August 7, 2020.
- ^ "Austriancharts.at – Weezer – Maladroit" (in German). Hung Medien. Retrieved August 7, 2020.
- ^ "Weezer Chart History (Canadian Albums)". Billboard. Retrieved August 7, 2020.
- ^ "Dutchcharts.nl – Weezer – Maladroit" (in Dutch). Hung Medien. Retrieved August 7, 2020.
- Musiikkituottajat – IFPI Finland. Retrieved August 7, 2020.
- ^ "Lescharts.com – Weezer – Maladroit". Hung Medien. Retrieved August 8, 2020.
- GfK Entertainment Charts. Retrieved August 7, 2020.
- ^ "Top 75 Artist Album, Week Ending 23 May 2002". GfK Chart-Track. Archived from the original on 2 May 2018. Retrieved 4 August 2022.
- ^ "Norwegiancharts.com – Weezer – Maladroit". Hung Medien. Retrieved August 7, 2020.
- ^ "Swedishcharts.com – Weezer – Maladroit". Hung Medien. Retrieved August 7, 2020.
- ^ "Swisscharts.com – Weezer – Maladroit". Hung Medien. Retrieved August 7, 2020.
- ^ "Official Albums Chart Top 100". Official Charts Company. Retrieved August 7, 2020.
- ^ "Weezer Chart History (Billboard 200)". Billboard. Retrieved August 7, 2020.
- ^ "Top 200 Albums of 2002 (based on sales)". Jam!. Archived from the original on September 6, 2004. Retrieved March 23, 2022.
- ^ "Canada's Top 200 Alternative albums of 2002". Jam!. Archived from the original on December 4, 2003. Retrieved March 26, 2022.
- ^ a b "Top Billboard 200 Albums – Year-End 2002". Billboard. Retrieved August 7, 2020.
- ^ "UK Top 40 Singles Chart". Everyhit.com. Retrieved 2007-11-26.
External links
- Maladroit at YouTube (streamed copy where licensed)
- Maladroit at MusicBrainz (list of releases)