pom pom is rendered in much higher sonic clarity than even his previous breakout record Before Today, which pushes his eclectic songwriting methods into much greater relief. The record encompasses everything from Magnetic Fields-esque pop balladry (lead single “Put Your Number in My Phone,” an irresistible ditty) to gothic beat workouts (the bizarre and winding “Not Enough Violence,” which incorporates Kraftwerk synthesizers, alarm clock samples, and repeated shouts of the word “fertilizer” into its 6 minute run-time). “Sexual Athletics” starts off as a proto-rap goof, with Pink declaring himself “the sex king on a velvet swing,” before the song gives way to Beach Boys harmonies and bells as he confesses that “all I wanted was a girlfriend all my life.” The fantastic “Black Ballerina” plays like Prince attempting a recreation of the Velvet Underground’s “the Murder Mystery” based around a 13-year old boy’s first experience at “the number one strip club in L.A.” Album centerpiece “Dinosaur Carebears” plays like a list of every genre Pink was ever told not to attempt, with excursions in Arabic dance, reggae, and children’s music.

The record also includes some of Pink’s most nuanced, emotionally realized songs to date. “Picture Me Gone” finds Pink balladeering about a near-future bereft of physical media, dedicating selfies to his future children before his death. It’s all a bit on-the-nose and cheeky, but the sci-fi element allows him to deliver one of his most emotive and powerful vocal performances. “One Summer Night” is a sugary synthpop shuffle with a similar focus on the death of an era, with Pink crooning that “time is running out, yeah / better write down these lines.” Album closer, “Dayzed Inn Daydreams,” is a widescreen cowboy ballad straight out of The Searchers that ends the record with a well-earned sentimentality.

Ultimately, pom pom proves itself as a successful record because these disparate moods and sounds work best in proximity to each other. The obnoxious novelty of something like “Jell-o” gains heft when sandwiched between XXX anthems “Sexual Athletics” and “Black Ballerina.” Similarly, the seriousness of “Dayzed Inn Daydreams” is harder to pinpoint after the extended Beatles goof of “Exile on Frog Street.” Over the course of the record, Pink wears many crowns – the Sex King, the Frog Prince, the Goth Bomb, the hunter hidden in lipstick – but the record is held together by its own delirious enthusiasm. Opener “Plastic Raincoats in the Pig Parade” finds Pink looking in the sky and musing that it must be “an Ariel day,” and the ensuing 67 minutes make good on that promise. pom pom presents pop music through Ariel Pink’s twisted lense, allotting you “the chance to go with a big parade.” It’s up to you whether you follow the procession or not. For those interested in Pink’s brand of irreverent pop anarchism, pom pom is an absolute pleasure. Mannequins are so afraid.

Grade: A

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But when I first listened to With A Little Help From My Fwends, I felt betrayed. On first listen, the thing is nearly unlistenable. If the original is a touchstone of acid-influenced psychedelic music, Fwends is psych rock from the depths of a k-hole – fumbled rhythms, extreme and ugly in-the-red aesthetics, rambling drones, and sonics that place every instrument and voice behind a thick wall of fuzz and stoned reverb. The opening track – the title track of the original album – is an utter butchering of the song, replete with nonsensical key changes, muttered vocals, and an incongruous and completely random fuzz solo by Dinosaur Jr.’s J. Mascis. The sheer amount of inexplicable decisions made in these covers is incalculable. How to explain the hardcore punk drums and screeched vocals on “With A Little Help from My Friends?” Or the decision to have the Cool Kids’ Chuck Inglish mutter his way through “Getting Better,” the members of Dr. Dog backing him up like a deranged barbershop quartet? The sheer strangeness of this album means that by the time Foxygen and MGMT’s Ben Goldwasser turn the “Sgt. Pepper” reprise, 1 minute on the original album, into a 5 minute freak-funk jam, it seems like a conservative cover. I felt provoked by this unwieldy record, and even texted a friend in a fit of rage that I was finally pushed over the edge by Wayne Coyne’s attention-starved tactics.

But in subsequent listens, I found my rage turn into fascination and even guilty-pleasure love for this record. It’s excessive and repulsively self-indulgent, and not everything works (“Being For the Benefit of Mr. Kite!,” which Maynard James Keenan of Tool turns into something out of Invader Zim, is particularly rough), but a nice pair of headphones and a generous attitude go a long way toward enjoying this record. Turning pop music’s most universally well-regarded album into a debauched freak-out really does breathe some life into a work that many regard as scripture, the aural equivalent of taking a box of crayons to Picasso’s Guernica. It doesn’t make it better, but it’s a fun piss-take done with equal parts reverence and well-spirited mockery. Once it’s understood as an act of fuckery by a band with nothing to lose, one can note the blasphemous aural jokes buried within the layers of synthesizers and distortion. The famous, climactic C-chord of “A Day in the Life” that completes the album is ousted completely. The sitars that proved so crucial to the original “Within You Without You” are replaced with shrieking feedback. The opening lyric of “Friends” – “What would you do if I sang out of tune?” – is Auto-tuned, for God’s sake. This is the kind of cover that actively challenges and comments on the material, which is so much more interesting and inflammatory than a conservative, by-the-numbers tribute.

In a music landscape that has canonized the beloved Beatles beyond reproach, the Lips’ aggressive distorted weirdness feels like a thrillingly subversive bit of throwaway fun. It’s not going to replace Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots in your collection (or the original Sgt. Pepper’s, for that matter), but as a lark whose sales go to charity it’s a worthwhile excursion from these weirdos. Now let’s just hope Wayne and co. pull it together and record another record on par with Embryonic before we get next year’s inevitable Pet Sounds desecration.

Grade: #?%^ (there is no letter-grade equivalent)

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Pictured: the members of Weezer. From left to right: Rivers Cuomo, Brian Bell, Scott Shriner, and Pat Wilson.*

All of which is a long-winded way of saying that the idea of new album Everything Will Be Alright in the End being a “comeback” is a bit of a misconception, one perpetuated more by wide-eyed, hopeful former Weezer fans than by anything the band has indicated or is in need of. The implicit idea behind all this talk is of the nebulous idea of “relevance,” and considering the band’s first two albums painted Cuomo as a D&D-obsessed nerd who loved Kiss and masturbated about underaged Japanese fans, “relevance” has never been a part of Weezer’s schtick. And all the hallmarks of a latter day Weezer album are in effect here: the presence of corporate co-writer credits in the liner notes (with Demi Lovato songwriter Josh Alexander sharing writing credit on “Lonely Girl” and “Da Vinci,” and Avril Lavgine lacky Jacob Kasher on first single “Back to the Shack”), often clunky lyrics (on “Da Vinci,” Cuomo tells his crush that “I looked you up on Ancestry.com / There was no record of dad or of mom”), and, of course, embarrassing cover art. So it’s not an unprecedented comeback, or a “return to form,” or whichever abstract adjective overly-excited critics may want to slap onto it. It is however, a damn good rock record, with more consistent songwriting and hook-writing than the band has offered up in many years now. The production scales back on the clinical pop sheen that helped to make Raditude and Make Believe such insufferable listens, and the band even touches on its metal roots in the closing “Futurescope Trilogy.”

And the high points of Everything Will Be Alright In The End come close to making you forgive the band for their streak of artistic failures. The easiest way to identify these high points is to check the writing credits – while the aforementioned corporately-co-written tracks offer examples of Weezer as cynical pop conglomerate (the opening Flo Rida whistles of “Da Vinci” alone will strike fear into any Pinkerton lover’s heart), and Cuomo’s solo compositions are reliably hooky nerd-rock fun (opener “Ain’t Got Nobody” and history goof “The British Are Coming” are particularly infectious), the true heart of Everything lies in Cuomo’s collaborations with his alt rock descendents. This makes sense, given the decidedly legacy-minded nature of the record (in everything from its title to the cheekily self-referential “Eulogy for a Rock Band”), and it lends the music a spirit of good-naturedness and earnest collaboration that leads to many of the record’s best moments. In “I’ve Had It Up to Here,” “Go Away,” and “Foolish Father,” Cuomo passes the torch onto younger musicians who he’s inspired, and in turn retains some of their influence. It’s fascinating seeing the results of these collaborations: “I’ve Had It,” written with Justin Hawkins, lead singer of British glam rock one-hit wonders the Darkness, livens up the normally funk-less Weezer with a bit of glammy swagger. Energized, Rivers can’t help but proclaim that he doesn’t “want to compromise my art for universal appeal / Don’t want to be mass-consumed / I’m not a Happy Meal,” before leading the band into a light-heeled prog-pop breakdown-buildup straight out of A Night at the Opera. And on Bethany Cosentino collab “Go Away,” the Best Coast singer and Cuomo trade cute, brazenly simple (or “dumb,” if I’m going to be more discerning) lyrics over Buddy Holly chords, and the whole thing is cute and fun, if a bit Radio Disney.

The heart of the record, however, lies in Patrick Stickles collab “Foolish Father.” I’ll cop to a pretty huge bias here, considering my Titus Andronicus obsession, but the outcome of their work together finds Cuomo embracing Stickles’ brand of catharsis through hard truths and loud guitars (a style of music not too different from that of the man who once sang that he’d be better off masturbating than flirting with girls) and delivering a stunning and heartfelt tribute to the complexities of parenthood. This is 2014 Weezer satisfying on all possible grounds – addressing issues that are in any way relevant to Cuomo’s life, achieving a vulnerability rare within their recent catalog, and truly rocking like it’s 1994 all over again. It’s mature and catchy and exactly what all us Pinkerton fans were hoping to hear from the guys at this point in their career. And the segue to the three-part, mostly instrumental hard rock outro feels well deserved and cathartic.

And even the low points aren’t too bad, especially by Raditude standards. There’s nothing as short-sighted and embarrassing as 2009 Lil Wayne collab “Can’t Stop Partying;” even the most perfunctory tracks on this album sound like Weezer having care-free fun, and will sound a hell of a lot better than “We Are All On Drugs” when you catch the band at your local mid-sized outdoor venue next summer (seriously, fuck that song). We’re happy, Rivers is happy. Everyone’s happy. Maybe everything really will be pretty good in the end.**

Grade: B+

* Good for you, asshole. You realized it wasn’t them. My friends and I got to meet the band this summer. Will’s uncle is the guy who says “yeah” on “Undone (the Sweater Song),” and he got us backstage. They were cool. Rivers was awkward, naturally. Brian Bell wasn’t particularly sure who picked their singles for them. They all also took the time, unprompted, to disparage “Back to the Shack” as the worst song on the album (which it unequivocally is).

**Because the title is such an obvious review pull-line, and I refuse to play that game. Fuck you, Cuomo.

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The release of RiFF RAFF’s NEON iCON, then, can be read as an attempt to define RiFF RAFF to the public. Exec-produced by Diplo, and featuring an impressive guest list (which includes Childish Gambino, Mike Posner, Dirty Projectors’ Amber Coffman, the aforementioned Miller, and DJ Mustard) iCON makes room for all of Jody Highroller’s moods. This means that in addition to the trap-rap goofiness heard in lead single “How to Be the Man,” we get RiFF RAFF doing rock-rap on “Kokayne” (perhaps the single most enthusiastic and remorseless coke endorsement in pop history), psychedelic soul rap on the truly excellent Gambino feature “Lava Glaciers,” and even Plain White Tees-sampling (!!!) country on “Time.” The eclecticism on display throughout NEON iCON is overwhelming, entertaining, and downright exhausting at points. In general, the record works best when embracing RiFF RAFF’s bizarre style and outrageous personality.

On album highlight “Wetter Than Tsunami,” he offers up absurdist brags (“Step inside the club and I look like Power Ranger”) over a seasick trap beat. The Mac Miller-produced “Aquaberry Dolphin” is a fun oddity, with the beat made up of tinkling piano lines and sampled dolphin calls. Listening to these songs, one gets a clear understanding of RiFF RAFF as swag-rap prankster, subverting materialistic hip-hop tropes with bizarre beats, Southern music flourishes, and non sequitur brags.

However, songs like “Versace Python” and “Cool It Down” tell a different and decidedly less interesting story. These find RiFF RAFF in a seemingly earnest mode of lyricism that serve to confuse rather than move. He even croons the hooks, which tell of “tears [falling] from the castles around my heart” and of the virtues of wine-drinking as a method of keeping calm. By the time “Maybe You Love Me” starts up, with its godawful Mike Posner hook and cliche broken-relationship lyrics (“If you don’t want to love me, you don’t got to love me no more, and we can restart, and we can restart”), one starts to wonder exactly how self-aware RiFF RAFF is.

With the humor and weirdness drained from the music, RiFF RAFF is merely a mediocre rapper with a clunky flow, and unlike Lil B, he does not have the endearing personality and emotional honesty to make up for his lack of technical prowess. The album works best when it embraces its trashiness and positions itself as guilty pleasure music. Working in this mode, nearly any style of music can suit RiFF RAFF, from the aforementioned country goof of “Time” to the ‘80’s-synthpop weirdness of “VIP Pass to My Heart.” But when NEON iCON drifts into pop rap mediocrity, it begins sound like “the man” is losing his voice.

Grade: B-

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Mac DeMarco has had a busy year. The Montreal-born, Brooklyn-inhabiting indie rock prankster (who has described his sound as “jizz jazz,” a mix of surf rock textures, jangle pop guitar tones, and soft-spoken crooning) found himself an indie sensation after releasing debut album 2, working with Tyler, the Creator, and developing a beloved live act, known to feature spontaneous nudity and bizarre, profane covers of played-out classic rock chestnuts like “Tears in Heaven” and “Takin’ Care of Business.” His fanbase has grown immensely, and yet he still dresses like a janitor. He has generally become known as the lovable, immature slacker king of indie pop.

(And he licked my face last night. Frantically. I just wanted to mention that again.)

Grade: A-

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