Weezer - Weezer (Red Album)

The Red Album is the strangest record Weezer have made and the one that rewards repeat listening most. Released in June 2008 with Rick Rubin and Jacknife Lee sharing production duties, it abandons the tight ten song formula entirely in favour of prog suites, genre pastiche and, for the first time, songs written and sung by the other three members.

"Pork And Beans" was the hit, written in a fit of pique after a label executive suggested Rivers Cuomo work with outside songwriters, and it is one of the funniest and most direct things he ever put on tape. "The Greatest Man That Ever Lived" runs six minutes through roughly a dozen musical styles including a rapped verse and a Shaker hymn, and it should not work at all. "Heart Songs" lists the records that made Cuomo want to be a musician and ends with Nirvana. Brian Bell, Scott Shriner and Pat Wilson each take a lead vocal on the second side, which is either a democratic gesture or an abdication depending who you ask.

It is messy, overreaching and frequently brilliant, and it has aged into a cult favourite among people who found the earlier albums too tidy.