All Aboard! There’s an incoming train soon to steam past your local blogspot or review site; it’s the Rivers Cuomo Hate Bandwagon Express! It’s a hugely popular ticket and might entice you for a ride, especially when you see all your trendy hipstre friends waving smugly from a coach class window.

Well, say goodbye to your last shred of cred, turn off your Pitchfork RSS, and give your oh so beloved Merriweather Post Pavilion vinyl to a Westwood hobo. One of the most fun party albums of 2009 has been unleashed and it demands your full attention: its name is Raditude.

Rivers Cuomo simply "can't stop partying"

Before you give it a listen, there are several key issues that must be addressed:

1) Weezer will never release a Pinkerton II. The tormented spirit of the Weezer’s second album is an anomaly in the band’s catalogue, and frankly, the world doesn’t exactly need more of it. Raditude finds the band hitting a new stride with a fresh, unabashedly fun attitude, fully embracing their pop sensabilities in infectiously catchy tracks “The Girl Got Hot” and “Put Me Back Together.” Several new songs would also seamlessly fit onto the tracklist of Blue, such as “The Prettiest Girl in the Whole Wide World” and especially “(If You’re Wondering if I Want You To) I Want You To” which might be the best Weezer track this decade.

2) The “irony” issue. The first unraveling of a mustached Cuomo on the Red album cover, as well as ridiculously ambitious genre-spanning tracks like The Greatest Man Who Ever Lived, shocked the post-Make-Believe world of Weezer fans. Most have speculated (or perhaps hoped) that the band may be subtly trolling the mainstream music industry in a meta-conscious fashion, but with the excepetion of Pink, Weezer has always been since the beginning a band to incorporate humor, perhaps similar in the same sense to a band like Ween. The wacky hijinx of Weezer in recent years (”Wuggie” snuggies, interactive shows, Weezy cameos, Youtube worship) may be less the grand ironic scheming of a pop band and more just the simple personality of Rivers Cuomo. He’s a strange dude.

3) The lyrics. Correct, they are dumb, and yes, Cuomo is pushing forty and singing about girls and parties and malls. But really, it’s just an extremely enjoyable, albeit dumb, pop-rock album. Are they really an issue?

Raditude is a party album, a breezy summer album. A collection of well-crafted pop that begs to uplift your mood. Find a sunny day, find a bike, and understand.

-Ricky