Weezer - s/t (The Red Album)

The Red Album is a bit of an odd one. This is where Rivers actually started sharing some of the singing and songwriting duties in the band. This album has some of Weezer's strangest subject matter, but it all actually works pretty well. You'd hardly guess they were singing autobiographical songs about pigs and spiders (nope. No references to Charlotte's Web) for how hard they rock.

This album offers plenty of great Weezer tracks, but you only need to know one of them: "The Greatest Man That Ever Lived (Variations on a Shaker Hymn)." When Rivers came into the studio with a rough version of the track, Brian Bell mentioned that it reminded him of Copeland's variations on the Shaker hymn "Simple Gifts" (Part of Copeland's transcendent Appalachian Spring). Knowing this, Rivers decided to do variations on his own song, which basically turned the song into a Bohemian Rhapsody-esque walk through several different genres. The track actually opens with one of the greatest hip-hop verses I have ever heard, and I've heard a decent amount of hip-hop for a honky. Anyway, you owe it to yourself to hear this song. It's one of the greatest songs of the 00's. As for The Red Album itself, I don't listen to it nearly enough. It's always better than I think it is.