Weezer - Keep Fishin' b/w Photograph (live version)

"Keep Fishin'" was a bit of an anomaly on Maladroit. The rest of the album sounded rough and unpolished (and some would say it sounded like an unholy mess. I know. I was on the Weezer web boards at the time and the universal trashing of Maladroit was the main reason I left) while "Keep Fishin'" had enough sheen to be a green album track. As the cover would indicate, this is the single Weezer did with The Muppets. It seemed an odd choice at the time, but not a bad one.

This single marked a big departure for Weezer in one respect, and not one that I am particularly happy with. Up until this point, Weezer b-sides were usually unreleased tracks. That's how we got songs like "You Gave Your Love to Me Softly," "Devotion," "Suzanne," "Sugar Booger" and many others. All the songs listed in the previous sentence are high quality Weezer tracks that didn't make the album for one reason or another. When Weezer recorded Maladroit, they started posting demos from their recording sessions on nearly a daily basis. There are dozens of tracks that appeared on the Weezer home page during this time but didn't make the cut for the album. They could have put a rough cut of a song like "Don't Pick on Me" or "Sandwiches Time" on the flipside, but they didn't. They put a live version of a song from a previous album on the b-side. I am not opposed to live albums or live EP's, but when you have a talent like Rivers Cuomo who cranks out hundreds and hundreds of songs, would it kill you to pick the best one that didn't make the cut and use it as a b-side? Ever since this single, Weezer has been doing all live versions as b-sides. In their defense they have also started putting more than the standard 10 tracks on their albums, but that doesn't mean I won't still be wanting more Weezer. The score I am about to give this single is more a reflection of my feelings on the b-side and the shift it represents than my feelings on the a-side which is a perfectly nice tune.